As the
expression goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And good
intentions are what led actor Liev Schreiber to Muthana Mohmed, a 25-year-old
student filmmaker from Baghdad who was featured on an MTV special in 2003.
Schreiber was ramping up production on his directorial debut, an adaptation of
Jonathan Safran Foer's novel Everything Is Illuminated, and he saw in Mohmed the living
embodiment of the project's intent to bridge the cultural divide. So he and his
producers made arrangements for Mohmed to fly to the Czech Republic to work as
a production assistant on the film, under the expectation that it would be a
gratifying learning experience for Mohmed and his sponsors. With filmmaker Nina
Davenport on board to document the occasion, the stage was presumably set for
the year's most heartwarming DVD extra.
