Double agent in Middle East

What they did not know is that a great story lurked within. Often accompanying the Hamas leader was his son, Mosab Hassan Yousef. In addition to being his father??s aide, Yousef was a spy for Shin Bet, Israel??s internal security service. For more than ten years the agent codenamed The Green Prince lived a double life, outwardly loyal to his father and Hamas while all the time informing on them.

The extraordinary story is told in The Green Prince, out next week.

??All of a sudden this innocent television footage in the context of a cinematic film becomes dynamite,?? says Schirman. ??These guys were documenting the spy in action.??

By the time he became aware of Yousef??s story, Schirman had made two films about shadowy operators and those who love them. The Champagne Spy (2008) was about a son who discovers his father is a Mossad agent. In the Dark Room (2013) focuses on the wife and daughter of Carlos the Jackal.

Schirman, an Israeli, was looking for a third film when a friend alerted him to Yousef??s book, Son of Hamas.

??I devoured it, read it in two hours. When something opens your mind you want more and more, and I realised how little we know about Hamas. It??s like today with ISIS, people only know what they get in the 90 seconds news or headlines, but nobody really knows the culture from inside. Mosab was the son of a Hamas leader. He came from the inside and he could give us a glimpse of that culture. That was fascinating.??

But there was something more to the story, which Schirman realised on meeting Gonen Ben Yitzhak, Yousef??s Shin Bet handler.

??I remember sitting with Gonen in a restaurant in Tel Aviv and during the conversation I started to understand the nature of their relationship today. I had goosebumps all over because I realised that these best of enemies so to speak had become best of friends.??

How that happened, and how Yousef found himself in the position of informant in the first place, is set out in The Green Prince. Using a mixture of footage and interviews, the tale unfolds like a thriller. Even making the film in Munich had elements of a spy drama. Maintaining anonymity was a given, for example, and precautions were taken on set.

??We did have requirements from some financiers that we had armed security on the set,?? recalls Schirman. ??We were more scared of the armed security than we were of any threat. Mosab said he got so nervous because the guy would follow him around everywhere. It was intense. Intense.??

The set was purpose built to lend the film the air of a thriller. The walls were five metres high and made to look like slabs, calling to mind the wall which divides Israelis from Palestinians and signalling the two men??s isolation. When it came time to start the interviews, the set added to the pressure Schirman was already feeling.

??When you sit in a room surrounded by five metre walls it already throws you off your game. You have to imagine the challenge of interviewing master spies. They??re not everyday people.??

Judging by the results, he rose to the challenge and more. Indeed, after the filming had finished, Yitzhak told him: ??Nadav, this is the first time I feel like I??ve been handled??. There are, Schirman agrees, similarities between handlers and film directors. Both, for example, need to build a solid bond of trust with their subjects if the relationship is to work and be fruitful.

The Green Prince is produced by John Battsek and Simon Chinn, who between them are responsible for such acclaimed, Oscar-winning documentaries as Man on Wire, Searching for Sugar Man, and One Day in September. Both are pioneers, explains Schirman, of non-fiction narrative documentaries where the story is king and films are made to be watched on the big screen.

??This is a film people are going to see in movie theatres. They??re going to pay the babysitter, the parking, the cinema ticket. It??s an expensive endeavour. You want to be able not only to inform them but to touch them, to entertain them, they want to have a thrilling, gripping experience. So it??s very different from dealing in TV documentary.??

Today, Yousef lives in California. He is still in touch with Gonen, who now works as a lawyer in Israel, and he has been doing publicity tours with Schirman, 42. After winning the audience award at Sundance, The Green Prince became a hit at other film festivals around the world, including London.

??I know him pretty well I think after digging deep into his persona but today, after the film is finished, I keep being surprised by him," says Schirman. ??Every time we meet for interviews and things I see how he keeps evolving and challenging himself.??

Asked about his next film, Schirman shows he has picked up a few tricks of the secrets trade along the way.

??The eggs are hatching,?? he laughs.

The Green Prince, Glasgow Film Theatre, December 12-18