July 11, 2007 — PAY attention: A new
movie company called the Film Department has just been born. Its CEO is
Mark Gill, former 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.
