Julian Schnabel, the man who prefers to be called a painter and not a film directer, is having a film career that most who call themselves directors would die for. He’s nominated for an Oscar for directing The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (which I loved!!!), his Lou Reed documentary will play at SXSW in March and his next project is starting to come together:

The painter/director will try to bring peace to the Mideast. Schnabel is headed to Israel in June to scout locations for a movie he’ll shoot next year. “It’s based on a book by a woman named Rula Jebreal, who is an Israeli Palestinian,” he told an Israeli reporter in London. “She wrote a beautiful book called ‘Miral.’ It’s written in Italian and it’s about Palestinian women under the Israeli state. It’s about Hind Husseini who started the Dar El-Tifl orphanage in Jerusalem. It’s about a lot of things, it’s about peace.” Schnabel said: “We need to fix things over there . . . That will be my next thing. Yes, I’m going to devote my self to try and make things better over there.” [NY Post]

to learn about folks working towards peace in Israel and Palestine today and with the Oscars around the corner, watch the Diving Bell trailer and a clip of Schnabel talking about why he made the movie below.