Olivia Colman, Javier Bardem and Mark Ruffalo … are 1,500 actors, directors and international film professionals to publicly govern the situation in Gaza. In a letter published in The Guardian, They announce to end any collaboration with Israeli cinematographic institutions “involved in the” genocide “in Gaza.
“In this moment of crisis in which many of our governments authorize the butcher shop in Gaza, we must do everything in our power to respond to this complicity,” they write in this text also signed by the director Yorgos Lanthimos or Actresses Ayo Edebiri and Tilda Swinton.
Against “Genocide and Apartheid”
This commitment, in the film workers initiative for Palestine, is inspired by the cultural boycott in South Africa at the time of apartheid, and in particular “the filmmakers united against apartheid” (“The filmmakers joined against the apartheid”).
Its objective, specifically, stops collaborating with festivals, cinemas, stations and guilty producers according to the signatories of “exonerating or justifying genocide and apartheid.”
For example, they cite the Jerusalem Film Festival or that of Docaviv’s documentaries, which “continue to collaborate with the Israeli government.”
“The vast majority of Israeli corporations of cinematographic production and distribution, commercial agents, cinemas and other film institutions have never recognized the renowned international rights of the Palestinian people in their entirety,” they denounce.
“We are responding to the call of the Palestinian filmmakers, who have urged the international film industry to reject silence, racism and dehumanization,” they add in this text, which also has Av Duvernay, Rice Ahmed and Josh O’Connor among the signatories.
This call to the “institutional complicity, not identity” objective, nor individuals of Israeli nationality, specifies the tribe.
A petition already released in Cannes
Several letters signed by film, music or literature personalities have been published from the unprecedented attack in Hamas on October 7, 2023 in Israel and the Israeli devastating offensive launched in Gaza in response.
At the end of August, the group of Italian filmmakers Venice4 Palestina had urged the city festival to “adopt a clear and unequivocal position” against Israel’s actions, its letter collecting 2,000 signatures, including those of Guillermo del Toro or Ken Loach.
A few months before in Cannes, some 900 personalities had signed a petition to denounce the “silence” about the “genocide” in Gaza, including the president of the jury Juliet Binoche, Pedro Almodovar, Joaquín Phoenix or Susan Sarandon.
The attack of October 7, 2023, led by Hamas infiltrated commands in southern Israel, resulted in the death of 1,219 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official data.
Israeli reprisals have left at least 64,368 dead in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, placed under the authority of Hamas, but whose data is considered reliable by the UN.
Source: BFM TV
