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"The Attack" won a special jury prize last year at the San Sebastian film festival.

'The Attack' Wins Frankfurt Book Fair Prize for Best International Literary Adaptation

Scott Roxborough, November 30. 1999

COLOGNE, Germany – Director Ziad Doueiri and screenwriter Joelle Touma have won the Frankfurt Book Fair's best international literary adaptation honor for The Attack.

The film, an adaptation of the novel by Yasmina Khadra, stars Ali Suliman as an Arab surgeon living in Tel Aviv who, in the wake of a suicide bombing, discovers a dark secret about his wife.

Doueiri, Touma and Khadra will attend the book fair. The award ceremony will take place on Oct. 11.

"With The Attack, Ziad Doueiri has produced a brilliant screen adaptation of Yasmina Khadra's moving novel," said Frankfurt Book Fair director Juergen Boos. "He's not polemical, and he avoids cliches. Instead, he shows us in a nuanced way the contradictions of day-to-day Israeli-Palestinian existence."

The Attack premiered in Telluride and Toronto last year, kicking off a successful festival and art house run that has included visits to the San Sebastian, Goteborg and Munich film festivals. It also attracted agency attention for Doueiri, who signed with UTA following The Attack's Toronto premiere.

Doueiri will also attend Frankfurt's StoryDrive conference where he will speak on the experience of moving between Hollywood (where he has worked as an assistant camera man on Quentin Tarantino productions, including Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction) and the world of international independent cinema.