Search - Forbidden Lie$ on DVD

Murder, Politics, Greed and Scandal

Amos Lassen | Little Rock, Arkansas | 02/28/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

""Forbidden Lies"

Murder, Politics, Greed and Scandal

Amos Lassen

Norma Khouri is the supreme con woman and she is a mystery. Men lust after her, Islamic extremists want her dead, and the world of publishing wants her to vanish. Khouri managed to fool the literary establishment by selling it the so called true story about an honor killing---that of her supposed best friend, Dalia, in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The book she wrote, "Forbidden Love" had half a million readers and she had publishers and journalists in over 15 countries wanting to tell her story.
Australian journalist, Malcolm Knox, discovered that Khouri's book was a fake in 2004 and exposed her as a married Chicago real-estate agent and mother of two who was under investigation by the FBI for fraud (since 1999). She was definitely not a Catholic virgin from Jordan who was on the run from heads of the Islam religion who had placed a "fatwah" on her head because she openly spoke about honor crimes in the Arab countries. When this came to light, the literary world was sent running and the FBI reopened its files on her. Khouri then took a lie detector test, sued Knox for defamation, left her kids with a Rachel Richardson (an ex-heroine addict) and fled for America with $350,000 owed to her publishers and has remained in hiding. Now she wants to talk so we may know the whole story. And what a story it is.
This film tells Khouri's story and it is pitted against the stories of the people she conned. The film goes to Jordan, to London, to Chicago and to Queensland so we can piece together this real life mystery. We learn of Mary Baravikas who Khouri befriended and then left to die in a seedy Chicago hospital after Khouri cashed in her victim's savings and then stole her house. There is also Rachel Richardson who lost $15,000 because of her friendship with Khouri yet still thinks of her as a sweet person who will help anyone but who also holds some very dark secrets. There is also Khouri's husband, John Toliopoulus who Khouri says forced her to commit the crimes while holding her at gunpoint.
How did all of this happen? Supposedly Khouri's purpose in "writing" the book was to show how women of the Arab world were being murdered by male relatives because of "crimes of honor" and nothing was being done about it. Money was to be donated to Human Rights groups who received none of the royalties from the book. In fact, Rana Husseini, activist for the abolition of honor crimes, shows that the book has done great damage to the campaign and wants to know why publishers like Simon and Schuster and Random House allowed factual errors in the text go unchecked and who is making money from the book.
The viewer is left to be the judge. We go to Jordan and see the people that Khouri maintains really exist and that Dalia indeed was murdered because of an honor crime and that the real liar is the media. We have a look at Khouri's criminal past and we must decide if she is really a con artist or a person genuinely concerned with ending honor crimes. We must decide who to believe which is difficult because Khouri's story keeps growing and growing. Is the filmmaker an honest person or is she just stepping up to the spotlight?
Truth and fiction merge in the film and the film is a thriller that includes murder, greed, deceit, the East/West clash and an international scandal in the world of literature. Khouri's life remains a mystery that is unbelievably entertaining and frightening at the same time. The film fascinates and astounds and will keep you guessing. Anna Broinowski has done a superior job in directing this unforgettable documentary.
"

Vultures are everywhere, they even write books!

Medusa | Troy, MI | 08/24/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Norma Khouri wrote a book by the name "Forbidden Love" as the true story of her Jordanian friend: Dalia who supposedly was killed by her family for falling in love with a Christian.

"Forbidden love" that deals with honor killing in the Middle East, made huge noise when released especially after 9/11, when every Arabic person is seemingly under suspicion as a potential terrorist.

"Forbidden lies" is a documentary that reveals the falseness of this story by Norma Khouri, who lived most of her life in the United States and is involved in many fraud cases in the United States and England. The documentary also interviews women in Jordan who live in total freedom and great lives of coexistence and marriages with Christian neighbors. As a result of this documentary, the fabricated book that was written as a memoir was pulled off the shelves in Australia and England.

It's very important that this documentary was made or else, the vultures will keep spreading lies and using the constant state of chaos around the world to make money.
"

Best documentary i have seen in a long time

Efa B | Ireland | 11/04/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"wow, Norma, you big con artist you, from the outset you will feel for this woman, untill you get 20 mins into the documentary & that's when you want to meet her & shake the truth out of her...did she really have a friend that was killed by her father?? NO SHE DID NOT...writting about an honor killing of her best friend in Jordan by her father.. the truth is about the only thing she doesn't give us....watch this doc it is very good"