Homeland Filming Triggers Mideast Ruckus

Scenes makes Lebanon look bad, country complains
By Mary Papenfuss,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 19, 2012 12:01 AM CDT
Homeland Filming Triggers Mideast Ruckus
A "terrorist" tails a former CIA agent played by Claire Danes in this scene from 'Homeland' in Beirut. Except it's actually in Israel.   (AP Photo/Showtime, Ronen Akerman)

The darling of the Emmy Awards is causing a dust-up in the Mideast. Lebanese officials are complaining that scenes from Homeland revealing Beirut as a nest of terrorists are way off base. They don't even show the actual city because the scenes were shot in ... Haifa, Israel. Israelis are also miffed that the scenes featuring the mission of a slightly psychotic (now fired) CIA agent played by Claire Danes fail to show Haifa's sophistication, reports AP. At least Lebanon plans to get tough—sort of, reports the Independent.

“This kind of film damages the image of Lebanon. It's not fair to us and it's not true,” says Lebanon's tourism minister. “We are planning to raise a lawsuit against the director and the producer.” But then he adds that he would like any further scenes to actually be shot in Beirut. “We would like to welcome the crews here to film in this city," he says. "We were offended by the fact that they filmed the thing in Israel and said it was Beirut." No word yet from Homeland. (More Beirut stories.)

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