Film on my life is wrong: Khouri

HOAX author Norma Khouri failed to show for the premiere of a film about her life at the Adelaide Film Festival last night.

HOAX author Norma Khouri failed to show for the premiere of a film about her life at the Adelaide Film Festival last night.

But her presence was felt after she blitzed reporters with emails rejecting central arguments in the documentary, in which she presents herself as confused, abused and highly amused by all the attention.

Khouri, whose book Forbidden Love became a bestseller in 2003, dismissed claims that she "abandoned" her children when her hoax was uncovered.

In the film, one of Khouri's Queensland neighbours claims that she was forced to care for Khouri's children - then adolescents - for three months, while their mother hid from the media.

The US embassy finally sent the children back to the US, when the neighbour could no longer care for them.

But Khouri, who would not be interviewed about the film, saying she doesn't "do that any more", said in emails she had not "abandoned" the children but left them with a "best friend" in a place somewhere safer than in her own care.

In her book, Khouri claimed to be a Jordanian whose best friend, Dalia, was murdered in an honour crime. It was nonsense: she was born in Jordan but raised in Chicago.

In the film, she claims she is confused because she married too young to a man she claims abused her. He denies it.

In a series of emails to The Australian, which she asked not be published in their entirety, Khouri said she had in her life "put up with abusive crap that I just thought was my fault".

In the film, Khouri accuses her father of sexually abusing her, and produces a court document in which he apparently admits the rape of his daughter.

However, filmmaker Anna Broinowski, who had a full house for the premiere, says Norma's father denies the allegation.

"He says he admitted it because otherwise he would have been dragged through the courts and the family would have been destroyed and in those days (the 1970s) it was not what it now is," she said.

He did not serve prison time.

The film will be released nationwide through Palace films later this year.