On Friday, True/False seemed to explode all over the city of Columbia, beginning with the annual March into March parade through downtown???s main drag, and continuing through a night of packed screenings and parties. I ate buffet-style kangaroo carpaccio at an event called Reality Bites. I saw a live, partially acapella performance of ???I???ve Had The Time Of My Life,??? from Dirty Dancing. And I got a chance to confirm that the film that???s probably attracting the most ???buzz??? at this festival definitely deserves it.
Let???s start with that last one. Anna Broinowski???s Forbidden Lies tracks the almost too fascinating to be believed story of Norma Kouri, the author of Forbudden Love, a bestselling purported memoir about the honor killing of Kouri???s best friend Dalia, a Jordanian Muslim who fell in love with a Christian soldier. The book was published in 2003, (with the support of the Cheney family, who latched onto Forbidden Love as the right piece of anti-Arab propaganda at the right time, it was translated into 18 languages), and Kouri promptly became a literary rock star and a controversial spokeswoman for Muslim women???s rights. A year later, an Australian journalist published a story revealing that many details of Forbidden Lies were plainly inaccurate and/or apparently made up. Khouri, calling the book ???not fact, not fiction, [but] faction??? and comparing it to The Da Vinci Code, claimed she had altered specifics in order to protect her friend???s family, but maintained that Dalia???s honor killing was very real. In an effort to clear her name, Khouri tells Broinowski that if they go to Jordon together, and she???ll prove it. The ensuing trip devolves into a magnificent farce, and it forms the core of a portrait of Khouri??????who has the charisma of a movie star and the spin talent of a grade-A publicist??????as a con woman too clumsy to evade detection, but somehow so charming and clever that even those who have been hurt by her lies and crimes feel compelled to defend her.
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