It is nothing new for a film to stir controversy. The release of films like Last Tango in Paris, A Clockwork Orange and The Last Temptation of Christ caused outcries from parents and religious and morality groups around the world, but a new film has been causing a stir by interest groups across the political spectrum.

Paradise Now, a film whose protagonists are suicide bombers in Palestine, opens Friday night at the Campus Cinema in Witherspoon Student Center after debate and controversy have plagued its national release over the past months.

Activists like Nonie Darwish of the group “Arabs for Israel,” vehemently oppose the film and its message that they find to be ambiguous and dangerous.

“Paradise Now has a theme that is too familiar to me; a seductive theme that tells us there is a story that needs to be heard behind mass-murders and terrorist attacks,” Darwish said in a speech calling for the removal of Paradise Now from contention in the Academy Awards this year. “It wants to portray the murderers themselves as victims.”

Darwish, who is from the Middle East and grew up with “the culture of jihad,” garnered 320,000 signatures for her cause to remove the film from contention for the “Best Foreign Language Film” Academy Award. The film won a Golden Globe in the same category this year.

Darwish calls for “Peace Now” and for a culture that wishes “to start loving life, accepting others and ending terrorism.” She fears the film portrays a “kind of sexy jihad that is hard to resist” and does not portray the reality of most Palestinians — living their lives peacefully and trying to raise their children as best they can.

Anna Bigelow, assistant professor of philosophy and religion, has no interest in making apologies for suicide bombers but feels the movie is important because the situation in Palestine is “given a context” to discuss.

She feels the movie does “foster understanding” of what suicide bombers and extremists go through but definitely doesn’t “mean sanctioning their actions.”

In a western society that has been affected by suicide bombing and is typically unsympathetic to people who are willing to kill innocent people, the film shows a viewpoint that is difficult to witness.

“One shouldn’t see only this [Western] side of Palestine society,” Bigelow said. “These are the issues that define living in [Palestine].”

Bigelow believes Paradise Now is important and brought a seminar class to a screening of the film last semester when it played at Galaxy Cinema in Cary.

Bigelow believes students “don’t have to agree” with the film, but it has a redeeming quality because “it opens up dialogue.”

Sonora Bostian, UAB Films committee chair, feels Paradise Now‘s tagline illustrates why it is an important film for students to see.

“‘From the most unexpected place, comes a bold new call for peace,'” Bostian recalled from the poster hanging outside of the Campus Cinema. “The film is trying to extend an olive branch.”

Detractors, like Darwish, disagree with this notion of peace and feel it is misleading.

“Even the trailer suggested the same thing [as the tagline]: a Palestinian suicide bomber deciding not to go through with his mission,” Darwish said. “But the film is not as balanced as it appears to be in the trailer; the bomber chooses peace, but not for long.”

Supporters like Bigelow and Bostian encourage students to see the film because of its ability to illustrate, as Bostian said, “another side to the news we see everyday.”

Paradise Now has showtimes on Friday, Saturday and Sunday night.

The Middle East Studies program is also sponsoring a Middle East Film Festival that is screening films in the Erdahl Cloyd Theatre in D.H. Hill Library through April 10 — more information can be found at the Middle East Studies program homepage.