The anti-Islam film that's set off a firestormin the Middle East was directed by a 65-year-old schlock director named Alan Roberts, we've confirmed. He's the creative vision behind softcore porn classics like The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood.
An Alan Roberts is listed as director on the film's casting calls and call sheets from the summer of 2011, back when it was innocuously called Desert Warriors.. Castmembers and crew told usyesterday that Roberts was brought on by producer "Sam Bacile" aka Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, and he muddled his way through a disorganized three-month shoot.
This is the same Alan Roberts listed in IMDB as the director of a handful of softcore porn movies and other low-budget films, according to acquaintances we spoke to today.
"I am sure it was the same Alan Roberts, as I remember him speaking about this project," said filmmaker David A. Prior, a longtime acquaintance of Roberts, in an email. Roberts is listed as a producer on two of Prior's films, 2008's Zombie Wars and 2007's Lost at War.
"He did work on [Innocence of Muslims]," confirmed a man who was Roberts' business partner in a post-production facility he ran, who asked not to be named.
The backstory behind how Roberts became director of Innocence of Muslims is still unclear, like so many things about the film. We've tried to reach Roberts, but his business associate told us he "turned off his phone" soon after protests broke out over the film and is laying low. But he said Roberts was "non-political" and did not have any apparent anti-Islam feelings. Roberts may have been duped by the film's producer in much the same way as the rest of the cast and crew. They believed they were participating in a period piece about ancient Egypt and had no idea the movie would be edited and dubbed into a piece of Islamophobic propaganda..
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