Ever wonder what that wonderfully insufferable, pyjama-wearing teddy bear Julian Schnabel has been up to? The director/ artiste cum perennial self-promoter directed one of our favorite films of the last few years, “The Diving Bell & The Butterfly,” and has been relatively silent ever since he was snubbed at the Oscars, minus an awesome interview with 60 Minutes, where they called him out on being “touchy” and “sensitive” and the touchy and sensitive artist kind of flipped out (or at least was visibly peeved — you gotta love this line by Morley Safer: “Love him or hate him, you must admit he has an ego the size of Manhattan”).
Anywho, Schnabel finally has a new film project called, “Miral,” on track and it looks like he might court a little controversy as the story will center around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict according to Variety. To be exact, it’s based on a book about a real-life Palestinian woman, who started an orphanage “in Jerusalem in the wake of the 1948 partition of Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel.” The film will span the years 1948 through 1994.
Always one to do things the easy way, Schnabel wants to shoot the on location in Israel and the Palestinian territories. His lead star will be Palestinian actress Hiam Abbas, who recently starred in Tom McCarthy’s “The Visitor” as the mother to Haaz Sleiman and the sort-of love interest to Richard Jenkins.
“I’m walking between the raindrops trying to get this film made,” Schnabel told Variety. “It’s a very timely moment. It was terrible what happened there recently.” Shooting is set to begin April 19 and the filmmaker hopes to have the film ready for spring 2010.