[Marxism] History's most famous Palestinian

[clintonf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Issa bin-Yusuf al-Nazrini?


First black Jesus film

<http://www.smh.com.au/news/film/first-black-jesus-film/20
06/01/20/1137553742965.html>;

January 20, 2006 - 11:05AM

Billed as the world's first black Jesus movie, Son of Man portrays
Christ as a modern African revolutionary and intends to shatter the
Western image of a placid saviour with fair hair and blue eyes.

The South African film, which premieres on Sunday at the US Sundance
festival in Utah, transports the life and death of Christ from first
century Palestine to a contemporary African state racked by war and
poverty.

Jesus is born in a shantytown shed, a far cry from a manger in a
Bethlehem stable. His mother Mary is a virgin, though feisty enough to
argue with the angels. Gun-wielding authorities fear his message of
equality and he ends up hanging on a cross.

``We wanted to look at the gospels as if they were written by
spindoctors and to strip that away and look at the truth,''
director Mark Dornford-May said in an interview.

``The truth is that Christ was born in an occupied state and preached
equality at a time when that wasn't very acceptable.''

By portraying Jesus as a black African, Dornford-May hopes to sharpen
the political context of the gospels, when Israel was under Roman
occupation, and challenge Western perceptions of Christ as meek, mild
and European.

``We have to accept that Christ has been hijacked a bit - he's gone
very blond haired and blue-eyed,'' he said.

``The important thing about the message of Christ was that it is
universal. It doesn't matter what he looked like.''

There was a film called Black Jesus made in 1968 tarring Woody Strode,
but it is described as a political commentary rather than an
interpretation of the life of Christ.

Reuters

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