Outraged by an amateur film said to denigrate the Prophet Mohammad, militants attacked US diplomatic posts in Egypt and Libya on the anniversary of Sept. 11. Four Americans were killed, including US Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens. GlobalPost brings you the latest.
Sam Bacile and Terry Jones (Picture above) are the two men behind "Innocence of Muslims," the controversial low-budget film behind the attacks on US Embassies in Cairo and Benghazi that have resulted in the death of US Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three others so far.
The D-list movie portrays the Prophet Mohammed as "as a child of uncertain parentage, a buffoon, a womanizer, a homosexual, a child molester and a greedy, bloodthirsty thug," as the New York Times explained.
A 14-minute trailer of the movie was posted on YouTube in July, but it spread widely on the Internet after a version was dubbed over in Arabic.
But who are Bacile and Jones, exactly? And how did their movie end up wreaking international havoc?
Sam Bacile: The film's creator
Written, directed, produced and edited by Israeli American Sam Bacile (who is now reportedly in hiding over the ensuing outrage, the National Post reported), the movie seeks to show Bacile's view that "Islam is a cancer," as he told reporters.
“This is a political movie,” Bacile told the Post. “The US lost a lot of money and a lot of people in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we’re fighting with ideas.”
Bacile, a 50-something-year-old California real estate developer who is originally from Israel, made the film for $5 million, which he raised from 100 Jewish donors, he told reporters.
The full film has not been screened yet, and he is currently declining offers to distribute it, Bacile told the Times of Israel speaking from "a California number."
“My plan is to make a series of 200 hours” about the same subject, Bacile told the Times of Israel.
source here | September 12, 2012 >>
