Mohammed Assaf in discussions to star in Hany Abu-Assad film

Mohammed Assaf, left, and Hany Abu-Assad have talked about working on a new film. Getty Images

Director Hany Abu-Assad says that he has had discussions with the 2013 Arab Idol winner, Mohammed Assaf, about starring in a film.
The filmmaker tried to convince the Palestinian singer to star in The Idol, which goes on general release this week after a successful run of festival screenings around the world.
Assaf turned down Abu-Assad's request to play himself in the film, which was inspired by his life story and rags-to-riches journey from wedding singer to international star.
He felt that having just launched his professional music career, it would be a step too far and too soon to branch out into acting.
Now that a little time has passed and his credentials as a musician are better established, he is more open to the challenge of an acting career.
"Now that I've seen The Idol, and have been singing for a little bit longer, I am curious to know what it's like to act in a film," says Assaf.
He also thought it would have made things more difficult for him if his first acting role was playing himself. "I would not have liked to have played myself," says Assaf, "because in some cases [where the director has taken artistic license to tell the story], I would have appeared to be a liar."
But now that his curiosity has been stoked, the desire to appear in a film may be satisfied sooner than imagined. Abu-Assad exclusively revealed to The National that he has had preliminary discussions with Assaf about casting him in an upcoming project. But he was coy on exactly what it might be.
"We are in discussions, but first I want to make a film that will be shot in Vancouver, called Mountain Between Us," says Abu-Assad.
Although Assaf did not appear in The Idol, the director and singer struck up a great friendship during its production.
The film is split into two parts, the first half shows Assaf as a child, finding joy in music and then having to deal with his sister's illness. The second part tells how Assaf overcame huge obstacles to travel from Palestine to Egypt to compete in Arab Idol.
Abu-Assad manages to strike a balance between showing Assaf's struggles and his success. While his TV victory turned the singer into a star, he also found himself shouldering the burden of becoming a very public international figurehead and beacon of hope for the Palestinian people, who see his tale as a rare victory in their struggle for statehood.
"I feel for him," says Abu-Assad, who is also Palestinian. "It's so sad that we are so hungry for success stories that we all want something from Assaf.
"It's a lot of pressure for someone of his age. It's not easy to accommodate all the aspiration and the hope for a whole nation."
The pressure is so great that Abu-Assad says sometimes the 26-year-old singer wishes he had not won the contest.
"He's said it many times that he's very tired of this," the director says. "And sometimes he wishes he didn't win Arab Idol."
As for the film, Abu-Assad says that covering two distinct parts of Assaf's life was his way of bearing witness to the destruction that has taken place in Palestine over the years.
"I felt like you need to visualise the change that is happening in Palestine," he says. "In his youth, there was a kind of peace between 2005 and 2007, there was a period of hope, no new settlements - there was these two years of innocence.
"The second period, in 2013, was the siege, Hamas and the destruction of society. This was also reflected in Assaf's inner conflict, where someone wants to fulfil the dreams of his sister, but on the other hand, all those around him tell him he can't."
. The Idol is in cinemas now
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