1,500 actors and directors announce the boycotting of Israeli film institutions. “We respond to the call of the Palestinian filmmakers”
Protest against the war in Gaza, on the red carpet at the Venice Film Festival. Photo credit: Maria Laura Antonelli / AGF / SIPA Press / Profimedia
About 1,500 actors, directors and international professionals in the field of cinema, including Olivia Colman, Javier Bardem and Mark Ruffalo, have announced that they will cease collaborating with Israeli film institutions, which they accuse of “involvement in the genocide” in Gaza, in a letter published by the British newspaper The Guardian.
“At this time of crisis, when many of our governments authorize the carnage in Gaza, we have to do everything we can to respond to this complicity,” they said in this letter, also signed by director Yorgos Lanthimos and actresses Ayo Edebiri and Tilda Swinton, Cites AFP and Agerpres.
This commitment, initiated by the Workers for Palestine Film Group, is inspired by the South African cultural boycott during the Apartheid period and, in particular, by Filmakers United Against Apartheid.
Its concrete purpose is to cease collaboration with festivals, cinemas, television stations and production companies that, according to the signatories, are guilty of “discriminating or justifying genocide and apartheid”.
The signatories mention, for example, the Film Festival in Jerusalem and the International Docăviv Documentary Film Festival, which “continues to collaborate with the Israeli government.”
“The vast majority of Israeli companies for production and cinematic distribution, sales agents, cinemas and other film institutions have never fully recognized the international rights of the Palestinian people in their entirety,” they denounced.
The signatories added that “there are, however, some Israeli film entities that are not complicit”, without calling them.
“We respond to the appeal of the Palestinian filmmakers, who urged the international cinematic industry to refuse silence, racism and dehumanization,” they added in this text, among whose signatories are Ava Duvernay, Riz Ahmed and Josh O'Connor.
This call to Boicot concerns “institutional complicity, not identity”, nor individuals of Israeli nationality, states in the text.
The stars denounce the “silence” about the “genocide” in Gaza
Several letters signed by personalities from the world of film, music and literature were published from the unprecedented attack committed by Hamas on October 7, 2023 in Israel and from the devastating Israeli offensive launched in the Gaza strip.
At the end of August, the Venice Italian filmmakers4Palestine urged the city's festival to “adopt a clear and unambiguous position against Israel's shares, their letter bearing 2,000 signatures, including that of Guillermo del Toro and Ken Loach.
A few months before, in Cannes, about 900 stars signed a petition that denounced the “silence” about the “genocide” in Gaza, among them the president of the jury, Juliette Binoche, Pedro Almodovar, Joaquin Phoenix and Susan Sarandon.
Actress Gal Gadot will not participate in the Venice Festival. Who asked that the invitation to her and colleague Gerard Butler should be withdrawn
The attack on October 7, 2023, committed by Hamas commands infiltrated in the south of Israel, led to the death of 1,219 people by the Israeli side, most of them civilians, according to an AFP balance based on official data.
The Israeli reprisals resulted in at least 64,368 dead in the Gaza strip, according to the Ministry of Health of Gaza, which are under the authority of Hamas, but whose data are considered reliable by the UN, notes AFP.
