NEW FILM COMPANY'S SAUDI/PALI BACKERS DON'T WANT CERTAIN MOVIES MADE

New Film Company's Saudi and Palestinian Backers (LGF)

In the New York Post gossip section, Cindy Adams has a disturbing bit of info about the head of Al-Arabiya and some Arafat cronies, in bed with a new US film company and already influencing the movies that get made: Look who's on studio board.

July 11, 2007 — PAY attention: A new movie company called the Film Department has just been born. Its CEO is Mark Gill, for mer Miramax and Warner Independent exec who masterminded "March of the Penguins." Two of its board members are Sheik Waleed Al Ibrahim and Zeid Masri.

The Saudi Arabian sheik runs stations that are mouthpieces for the Saudis. Like for instance, Al Arabiya news network, which is not known to be pro-U.S.

Zeid Masri runs the McLean, Va., operation SilverHaze, which has in the past secretly invested Palestine Liberation Organization money through front companies. His SilverHaze caused the Bowlmor scandal this newspaper broke in 2004. Bowlmor, a Greenwich Village bowling hall that does big business in bar mitzvahs, took in an infusion of fresh capital years ago. When Bloomberg's Markets Magazine hit a strike and came up with information that the cash was, in fact, Yasser Arafat's own dirty millions, the deal fell down faster than a tenpin.

Now, while the Palestinian people are starving, SilverHaze is dabbling in stateside entertainment.

This all came to light when a development deal with Mark Gill was suddenly axed. "Dove Hunting," an action film/love story about two agents trying to stop a terrorist attack, had a go in December 2006. In March 2007, it was full speed ahead pending financing of this new studio. Came financing of this new studio and, with it, six weeks ago, an e-mail trail that canceled the project. Seems some of the fledgling studio's backers were not pleased with the subject.