81 Artists, Including Tilda Swinton and Javier Bardem, Call Out Berlin Festival for “Silence” on Gaza
In an open letter, signed by Berlinale alumni including Tatiana Maslany, Peter Mullan, Mike Leigh, Nan Goldin and Adam McKay, the group accused the festival of "censoring artists who oppose Israel’s ongoing genocide."
81 artists, including Tilda Swinton, Javier Bardem, Tatiana Maslany, and Adam McKay, have signed an open letter calling out the Berlin International Film Festival for “censoring artists who oppose Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and the German state’s key role in enabling it.”
The letter’s signatures, all Berlin festival alumni, included actors Angeliki Papoulia, Saleh Bakri, Peter Mullan and Tobias Menzies, and such notable directors as Mike Leigh, Nan Goldin, Miguel Gomes, and Avi Mograbi. In it, the group says it expects “the institutions in our industry to refuse complicity in the terrible violence that continues to be waged against Palestinians.”
Berlin festival organizers, the letter argues, should issue a clear statement condemning “Israel’s genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes against Palestinians,” just as the Berlinale has publicly condemned “atrocities carried out against people in Iran and Ukraine.”
Politics has pushed its way into the center of the Berlinale this year, almost to the exclusion of all other topics, including the films being screened.
In the festival’s opening press conference last Thursday, Berlinale jury president Wim Wenders was asked about Gaza and the support the German government — the festival’s main backer — has given Israel, including weapon sales. Wenders replied that artists “should stay out of politics,” arguing that filmmaking was “the opposite of politics.”
