Forbidden Lie$

In July 2004, Norma Khouri, the best-selling author of Forbidden Love, was exposed as a major literary fake. Her book, which had sold 250,000 copies worldwide, purported to tell of her experiences in Jordan where a friend, Dalia, had been stabbed to death by her father after she had fallen in love with a Christian man. Khouri claimed to have fled Jordan to Australia after being targeted with a fatwah over her campaign against honour killings. In reality she seems to have left Chicago in 1999 one step ahead of the FBI who wanted her for questioning over property transactions and other assorted frauds. Director Anna Broinowski, who made the 2004 success Helen’s War about Helen Caldicott, has been able to get remarkable access to Khouri (or rather Norma Bagain) who emerges as a charismatic and manipulative figure, as well as to her victims and the law enforcement agencies she has left in her wake. A real-life literary thriller.

Anna Broinowski and Sally Regan are Guests of the Festival

I am excited by the magnificent scope of geography, culture, people and politics opened up by Norma’s story. I am also interested in the delightful symbiosis that exists between the con-artist and the filmmaker. Both use a million imperceptible deceptions to manipulate the way people think. Both are in the business of making illusions real.

Anna Broinowski