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Backlash over Lena Dunham script for Syrian refugee film

The Girls creator is accused of ‘whitewashing’ after news that she is to adapt the story of Doaa Al-Zamel whose boat was rammed in the Mediterranean

Lena Dunham has suffered a social media backlash after it emerged she has been commissioned by Steven Spielberg and JJ Abrams to write the script for a film about a Syrian refugee who was stranded at sea.

Dunham tweeted a report by Variety magazine that she was to work on an adaptation of A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea, the harrowing story of Doaa Al-Zamel, who survived the sinking of the boat on which she was attempting to cross the Mediterranean. (Her fiance drowned after their vessel was rammed.) The book was written by Melissa Fleming, head of communications of the United Nations’ Refugee Agency.

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from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Ptm8Vb
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