Ziad Jarrah, the hijacker-pilot on the United 93 flight, is reinvented as a considerate husband in Anne Zohra Berrached’s film
Anne Zohra Berrached’s film is ambitious and interestingly intended, but naive and flawed, with a fundamental problem, which is right up there in the title. It presents us with a romantically imagined fictional couple inspired by Ziad Jarrah, the Lebanese-born 9/11 hijacker-pilot on the United 93 flight and his one-time German-Turkish girlfriend Aysel Şengün, whom he had met while a student drawn into al-Qaida’s notorious Hamburg Cell. Jarrah is often regarded as different from the other hijackers in that he came from a wealthy family, was not averse to the western world of pleasure, and was even rumoured to have had (temporary) qualms about the mission itself. Jarrah was dramatised as a rich-kid jihadi convert in Antonia Bird’s TV drama The Hamburg Cell in 2004, and made an appearance in...
Anne Zohra Berrached’s film is ambitious and interestingly intended, but naive and flawed, with a fundamental problem, which is right up there in the title. It presents us with a romantically imagined fictional couple inspired by Ziad Jarrah, the Lebanese-born 9/11 hijacker-pilot on the United 93 flight and his one-time German-Turkish girlfriend Aysel Şengün, whom he had met while a student drawn into al-Qaida’s notorious Hamburg Cell. Jarrah is often regarded as different from the other hijackers in that he came from a wealthy family, was not averse to the western world of pleasure, and was even rumoured to have had (temporary) qualms about the mission itself. Jarrah was dramatised as a rich-kid jihadi convert in Antonia Bird’s TV drama The Hamburg Cell in 2004, and made an appearance in...
- 9/7/2021
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Writer Irvine Welsh pays tribute to the inspirational film and TV director whom he was a partner with in the British production company 4Way
• See the Observer's obituaries of 2013 in full here
I first met Antonia Bird in the late 90s, and in 2001 she and Robert Carlyle and [the film-maker and critic] Mark Cousins invited me to become partners with them in a production company. When they asked me, I thought, God, how many years in film school would that be worth? Mark, an encyclopedia of film; Bobby, one of the greatest actors of his generation; and Antonia, this amazing director: who could say no to that?
The first proper meeting we had, I walked from Islington down to her house near Brick Lane, in Jack the Ripper country. It was one of these really drizzly London days, but I was so excited about all the ideas I wanted to share with her that...
• See the Observer's obituaries of 2013 in full here
I first met Antonia Bird in the late 90s, and in 2001 she and Robert Carlyle and [the film-maker and critic] Mark Cousins invited me to become partners with them in a production company. When they asked me, I thought, God, how many years in film school would that be worth? Mark, an encyclopedia of film; Bobby, one of the greatest actors of his generation; and Antonia, this amazing director: who could say no to that?
The first proper meeting we had, I walked from Islington down to her house near Brick Lane, in Jack the Ripper country. It was one of these really drizzly London days, but I was so excited about all the ideas I wanted to share with her that...
- 12/15/2013
- by Mike Leigh, Irvine Welsh
- The Guardian - Film News
Exclusive: Public Enemies writer on for finale to Kenneth Branagh TV series.
Ronan Bennett, writer of Johnny Depp gangster film Public Enemies, is to write the final episodes of Left Bank-bbc crime series Wallander starring Kenneth Branagh.
The fourth and final outing for the hit series based on Henning Mankell’s acclaimed novels will comprise three 90-minute episodes, an adaptation of The White Lioness and a two-part adaptation of The Troubled Man, which Branagh has previously described as “a very dense and brilliant novel”.
Bennett, who more recently wrote and produced Channel 4 drama serise Top Boy, is on board to write at least the final two episodes with the writer of the first episode to be confirmed.
Screen understands that the production is aiming for a summer 2014 shoot and that all original production partners are on board, though the BBC has not yet formally greenlit the series.
The Troubled Man, Mankell’s final...
Ronan Bennett, writer of Johnny Depp gangster film Public Enemies, is to write the final episodes of Left Bank-bbc crime series Wallander starring Kenneth Branagh.
The fourth and final outing for the hit series based on Henning Mankell’s acclaimed novels will comprise three 90-minute episodes, an adaptation of The White Lioness and a two-part adaptation of The Troubled Man, which Branagh has previously described as “a very dense and brilliant novel”.
Bennett, who more recently wrote and produced Channel 4 drama serise Top Boy, is on board to write at least the final two episodes with the writer of the first episode to be confirmed.
Screen understands that the production is aiming for a summer 2014 shoot and that all original production partners are on board, though the BBC has not yet formally greenlit the series.
The Troubled Man, Mankell’s final...
- 11/25/2013
- by andreas.wiseman@screendaily.com (Andreas Wiseman)
- ScreenDaily
The character of Sláine from the 2000Ad comic was based in part on Conan The Barbarian, but drew his most direct influences from the Celtic hero of legend Cú Chulainn. Now reports are coming in that a movie based on that character's exploits is on the way, and none other than Magneto himself will be bulking up (I would assume anyway) to play him.. According to Screen Daily.. Michael Fassbender is to take the lead in a new project written by Ronan Bennett, whose credits include Public Enemies and The Hamburg Cell. Fassbender will star as Cuchulain, the central hero of the Ulster Myth Cycle in the film (one of the four branches of Irish mythology), which has a working title Irish Myths. I'm glad "Irish Myths" is only the working title, it sounds like a brand of cream liqueur. Apparently funding is in place, but no director has come on board yet.
- 2/17/2012
- ComicBookMovie.com
Ronan Bennett's 'Hidden' attracted audiences of 5.22m on its opening slot on BBC One at 9pm on Thursday October 6th. The show was the most popular programme on 9pm slot on British Television. Despite losing half a million viewers during the hour it was still above the BBC1 slot average of 4.17m for the past 12 months. Bennett (Public Enemies, Face, The Hamburg Cell) is the Northern Irish author and screenwriter behind the 'Hidden' series, which follows small-time solicitor Harry Venn (Philip Glenister), whose criminal past has come back to haunt him.
- 10/10/2011
- IFTN
In the 10 years since the September 11 terrorist attacks, film directors have responded in myriad ways. Peter Bradshaw charts the rise and fall of the 9/11 movie
At the Venice film festival last week, George Clooney unveiled his new backstairs political drama, The Ides of March, about a Democratic presidential candidate getting bogged down in compromise, backstabbing and the dark political arts. Clooney said that he could conceivably have completed the film before now, but President Obama had been doing too well, and therefore the time wasn't right.
Perhaps Clooney was being serious and perhaps he wasn't. But the remark typifies the dwindling of the memory of 9/11 in Hollywood cinema. The Obama presidency, ushered in by the catastrophe of the Bush reign, is now perceived to be in trouble, and this enables a prominent Hollywood liberal to make the kind of savvy, ahistorically pessimistic political movie that could have been produced at...
At the Venice film festival last week, George Clooney unveiled his new backstairs political drama, The Ides of March, about a Democratic presidential candidate getting bogged down in compromise, backstabbing and the dark political arts. Clooney said that he could conceivably have completed the film before now, but President Obama had been doing too well, and therefore the time wasn't right.
Perhaps Clooney was being serious and perhaps he wasn't. But the remark typifies the dwindling of the memory of 9/11 in Hollywood cinema. The Obama presidency, ushered in by the catastrophe of the Bush reign, is now perceived to be in trouble, and this enables a prominent Hollywood liberal to make the kind of savvy, ahistorically pessimistic political movie that could have been produced at...
- 9/9/2011
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Hollywood struggled to respond to the war on terror, documentaries went through a golden age, and Michael Haneke was the noughties' moral conscience
If it is possible to whimper at the volume of a bang, then that is how this decade is ending on the big screen: with two high-profile, high-budget movies about the end of the world: Roland Emmerich's cheerfully silly 2012, and John Hillcoat's cheerlessly serious The Road, which arrive with a good deal of commentary to the effect that these movies typify the zeitgeist of the decade.
The noughties – that jokey word coined in the carefree 90s – are seen as damaged, injured, traumatised. The decade looks cracked from top to bottom by a sensational act of terrorism; by a reaction that achieved neither political palliative nor military success; by the confrontation between first-world prosperity and developing-world poverty; by the coming environmental catastrophe that threatens to engulf both; and finally,...
If it is possible to whimper at the volume of a bang, then that is how this decade is ending on the big screen: with two high-profile, high-budget movies about the end of the world: Roland Emmerich's cheerfully silly 2012, and John Hillcoat's cheerlessly serious The Road, which arrive with a good deal of commentary to the effect that these movies typify the zeitgeist of the decade.
The noughties – that jokey word coined in the carefree 90s – are seen as damaged, injured, traumatised. The decade looks cracked from top to bottom by a sensational act of terrorism; by a reaction that achieved neither political palliative nor military success; by the confrontation between first-world prosperity and developing-world poverty; by the coming environmental catastrophe that threatens to engulf both; and finally,...
- 12/7/2009
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
LONDON -- Former BBC director of factual and learning John Willis has been appointed CEO of Mentorn Prods., the indie acquired earlier this year by TV production shingle Tinopolis.
In addition to heading Mentorn -- producer of such shows as 9/11 drama Hamburg Cell, political satire A Very Social Secretary and international format Robot Wars -- Willis will take over as group creative director for Tinopolis.
Willis will be attempting to grow Mentorn's stateside business, which has suffered in the last 18 months, a factor which led to the company's sale to Tinopolis.
"I'm delighted to be joining a blue chip independent with a strong commitment to quality and with a willingness to expand, particularly in the exciting area of new media," Willis said.
Tinopolis chairman Ron Jones said that Willis' commissioning track record would help Tinopolis expand its business.
In addition to heading Mentorn -- producer of such shows as 9/11 drama Hamburg Cell, political satire A Very Social Secretary and international format Robot Wars -- Willis will take over as group creative director for Tinopolis.
Willis will be attempting to grow Mentorn's stateside business, which has suffered in the last 18 months, a factor which led to the company's sale to Tinopolis.
"I'm delighted to be joining a blue chip independent with a strong commitment to quality and with a willingness to expand, particularly in the exciting area of new media," Willis said.
Tinopolis chairman Ron Jones said that Willis' commissioning track record would help Tinopolis expand its business.
- 11/2/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
LONDON -- Television Corp., the troubled U.K. independent production outfit behind such U.K. shows as Hamburg Cell and Channel Four Cricketand Forever Eden for Fox in the U.S., said Thursday it was considering a takeover bid after seeing its shares collapse in value over the last 12 months. The bid, believed to be from Welsh production house Tinopolis, comes three months after TVC issued a profits warning after its Los Angeles-based business failed to secure commissions. The West Coast office has since been closed. "The board of Television Corp. announces that it has received an approach that may or may not lead to an offer for the company," TVC told the London Stock Exchange in a regulatory filing. "The board has decided to undertake a full strategic review considering all of the options available."...
- 10/13/2005
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
MOSCOW -- Audiences across Russia will have a chance to see the pick of the best new British films following the launch in Moscow Tuesday of a non-competitive showcase sponsored by U.K. overseas cultural promotion organization, the British Council. The New British Cinema festival opens at Moscow's 35 MM cinema - one of the city's many recently modernised screens - with Antonia Bird's controversial 2004 drama based on the 911 destruction of New York's Twin Towers, Hamburg Cell, with star Karim Saleh in attendance. Irish actress Eva Birthistle - named last year as one of European Film Promotion's European shooting stars will also be in Moscow for the screening of Ken Loach's Fond Kiss ... Ae (2004) about the emotions stirred on a Glasgow housing estate when a young Asian man falls in love with a white woman.
- 10/3/2005
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Screened
Edinburgh International Film Festival
EDINBURGH, Scotland -- It's Sept. 11, 2001, and a man whispers into a telephone: "I love you. I love you". But it's neither a victim of that dreadful day nor a survivor. It's one of the perpetrators. In Channel 4's riveting drama about the events leading up to the atrocities of Sept. 11, Ziad Jarrah and his cohorts are portrayed as ordinary mortals whose fanaticism emerges from everyday lives that are otherwise quite mundane.
The decision by director Antonia Bird and writers Ronan Bennett and Alice Perman not to demonize the men who committed the most heinous crime in recent memory is a brave one. Indeed the film's evenhandedness may offend some. It's unhelpful, however, to dismiss the men as monsters and instructive to be reminded that great evil may be rooted in heartfelt delusion. This is a film of great intensity and should find a wide audience for its considerable cinematic merit and worthwhile contribution to understanding the incomprehensible. It airs Thursday on the U.K.'s Channel 4.
As in Channel 4's previous docudramas Sunday, The Deal and Omagh, the script for The Hamburg Cell is based on "known facts and actual events" and strives to portray them objectively. It follows the development of a cell of Muslim revolutionaries established in the German city of Hamburg five years before the World Trade Center's twin towers were brought down.
At the center is Jarrah, a rich man's son from Lebanon who is studying dentistry. More secular than Muslim, Jarrah falls for Aysel (Agni Tsangaridou), an independent Turkish student who objects when an Islamic group targets him for induction.
Karim Saleh plays Jarrah with the soulful innocence that Al Pacino brought to the young Michael Corleone. Like the Godfather's son, Jarrah's bland features and timorous smile mask an inner turmoil hinted at only in his haunted eyes.
Gradually, he is drawn into the clutches of a mosque whose members espouse violence as the proper means to wage the jihad they see as a requirement of their interpretation of Islam. He remains ambivalent, seemingly earnest in his affection for Aysel and confessing that, having attended Catholic school, he was an indifferent Muslim. But the imam tells him sharply that he must say his prayers. He was in an infidel society, and he must not let himself be alone.
As he becomes closer to fellow initiates Mohamed Atta (Kamel) and Ramzi bin al Shibh (Omar Berdouni), the incessant radicalization begins to take hold. The modern world is a confusion. The modern world wants to take God from him. Every able-bodied man must train for the jihad.
Atta in particular is convinced. A Palestinian, he is a lonely and ascetic man who chides his friends for taking a beer or even wearing their shirts open. He longs to return to his homeland but when he visits, his cold and distant father scolds him for not pursuing a doctorate, having just obtained his master's degree, and his mother pines for grandchildren. Back in Germany, whatever drives his anger occupies him fully.
Soon the three students are in Afghanistan being trained by al-Qaida. When they return, the Hamburg cell leaders flatter and cajole them to join their violent plans. With growing and devastating suspense, the film shows the tragic path of fanatics who have lost sight of their objectives and redoubled their efforts to get there.
Throughout the building tension, the film offers reminders of how evidence of the impending assault was overlooked and how warnings of the dangers were not heeded. With the terrible Sept. 11 images seen only fleetingly at the beginning, the film ends with the perpetrators disappearing through an airport departure enclosure.
THE HAMBURG CELL
A Mentorn/Inner Circle Pictures GmbH/Simply Committed GmbH co-production for Channel 4 produced in association with the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
Credits:
Director: Antonia Bird
Co-writers: Ronan Bennett, Alice Perman
Producer: Finola Dwyer
Executive producers: David Aukin, George Carey
Cinematographer: Florian Hoffmeister
Editor: St. John O'Rorke
Production designer: Richard Hoover, Phil Roberson
Art director: Ulrich Schroder
Nicholas Scott, Iris Trescher
Costume designer: Antje Gebauer
Cast:
Ziad Jarrah: Karim Saleh
Mohamed Atta: Kamel
Aysel: Agni Tsangaridou
Ramzi bin al Shibh: Omar Berdouni
Marwan Shehhi: Adnan Maral
Abdulrahman Al-Makhadi: Kammy Darweish
No MPAA rating...
Edinburgh International Film Festival
EDINBURGH, Scotland -- It's Sept. 11, 2001, and a man whispers into a telephone: "I love you. I love you". But it's neither a victim of that dreadful day nor a survivor. It's one of the perpetrators. In Channel 4's riveting drama about the events leading up to the atrocities of Sept. 11, Ziad Jarrah and his cohorts are portrayed as ordinary mortals whose fanaticism emerges from everyday lives that are otherwise quite mundane.
The decision by director Antonia Bird and writers Ronan Bennett and Alice Perman not to demonize the men who committed the most heinous crime in recent memory is a brave one. Indeed the film's evenhandedness may offend some. It's unhelpful, however, to dismiss the men as monsters and instructive to be reminded that great evil may be rooted in heartfelt delusion. This is a film of great intensity and should find a wide audience for its considerable cinematic merit and worthwhile contribution to understanding the incomprehensible. It airs Thursday on the U.K.'s Channel 4.
As in Channel 4's previous docudramas Sunday, The Deal and Omagh, the script for The Hamburg Cell is based on "known facts and actual events" and strives to portray them objectively. It follows the development of a cell of Muslim revolutionaries established in the German city of Hamburg five years before the World Trade Center's twin towers were brought down.
At the center is Jarrah, a rich man's son from Lebanon who is studying dentistry. More secular than Muslim, Jarrah falls for Aysel (Agni Tsangaridou), an independent Turkish student who objects when an Islamic group targets him for induction.
Karim Saleh plays Jarrah with the soulful innocence that Al Pacino brought to the young Michael Corleone. Like the Godfather's son, Jarrah's bland features and timorous smile mask an inner turmoil hinted at only in his haunted eyes.
Gradually, he is drawn into the clutches of a mosque whose members espouse violence as the proper means to wage the jihad they see as a requirement of their interpretation of Islam. He remains ambivalent, seemingly earnest in his affection for Aysel and confessing that, having attended Catholic school, he was an indifferent Muslim. But the imam tells him sharply that he must say his prayers. He was in an infidel society, and he must not let himself be alone.
As he becomes closer to fellow initiates Mohamed Atta (Kamel) and Ramzi bin al Shibh (Omar Berdouni), the incessant radicalization begins to take hold. The modern world is a confusion. The modern world wants to take God from him. Every able-bodied man must train for the jihad.
Atta in particular is convinced. A Palestinian, he is a lonely and ascetic man who chides his friends for taking a beer or even wearing their shirts open. He longs to return to his homeland but when he visits, his cold and distant father scolds him for not pursuing a doctorate, having just obtained his master's degree, and his mother pines for grandchildren. Back in Germany, whatever drives his anger occupies him fully.
Soon the three students are in Afghanistan being trained by al-Qaida. When they return, the Hamburg cell leaders flatter and cajole them to join their violent plans. With growing and devastating suspense, the film shows the tragic path of fanatics who have lost sight of their objectives and redoubled their efforts to get there.
Throughout the building tension, the film offers reminders of how evidence of the impending assault was overlooked and how warnings of the dangers were not heeded. With the terrible Sept. 11 images seen only fleetingly at the beginning, the film ends with the perpetrators disappearing through an airport departure enclosure.
THE HAMBURG CELL
A Mentorn/Inner Circle Pictures GmbH/Simply Committed GmbH co-production for Channel 4 produced in association with the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
Credits:
Director: Antonia Bird
Co-writers: Ronan Bennett, Alice Perman
Producer: Finola Dwyer
Executive producers: David Aukin, George Carey
Cinematographer: Florian Hoffmeister
Editor: St. John O'Rorke
Production designer: Richard Hoover, Phil Roberson
Art director: Ulrich Schroder
Nicholas Scott, Iris Trescher
Costume designer: Antje Gebauer
Cast:
Ziad Jarrah: Karim Saleh
Mohamed Atta: Kamel
Aysel: Agni Tsangaridou
Ramzi bin al Shibh: Omar Berdouni
Marwan Shehhi: Adnan Maral
Abdulrahman Al-Makhadi: Kammy Darweish
No MPAA rating...
- 8/30/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
LONDON -- The Edinburgh International Film Festival said Wednesday this year's event will play host to 19 movies from North America including Sundance hit Super Size Me and Berlin documentary hit Ramones: End Of The Century. The lineup will also include six world premieres, organizers said, including Hamburg Cell, The Purifiers, Mickybo And Me, and My Summer Of Love. The festival, held annually in the Scottish capital, will open with Walter Salles' The Motorcycle Diaries and is scheduled to close with Wong Kar- Wai's 2046, both of which screened during this year's Festival de Cannes. The lineup also boasts titles from countries as far afield as Armenia, Hong Kong, China and Iran. The festival runs August 18 through 29.
- 7/14/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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