Advocacy group Film Workers for Palestine said Monday that more than 1,000 high-profile industry professionals from the film and TV world have signed a pledge to boycott Israeli film institutions that are “implicated in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people.”Advocacy group Film Workers for Palestine said Monday that more than 1,000 high-profile industry professionals from the film and TV world have signed a pledge to boycott Israeli film institutions that are “implicated in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people.”
The list of signatories — which has surpassed 1,200 names — includes filmmakers such as Yorgos Lanthimos, Ava DuVernay, Adam McKay, Boots Riley, Emma Seligman, Joshua Oppenheimer and Mike Leigh, and actors including Emma Stone, Olivia Colman, Ayo Edebiri, Lily Gladstone, Mark Ruffalo, Hannah Einbinder, Peter Sarsgaard, Aimee Lou Wood, Paapa Essiedu, Gael Garcia Bernal, Riz Ahmed, Melissa Barrera, Cynthia Nixon, Tilda Swinton, Javier Bardem, Joe Alwyn, and Josh O’Connor.
The pledge statement states that examples of complicity include “whitewashing or justifying genocide and apartheid, and/or partnering with the government committing them.”
As per the FAQ accompanying the pledge, this would include the Jerusalem Film Festival, Haifa International Film Festival, Docaviv, and TLVfest.
“In this urgent moment of crisis, where many of our governments are enabling the carnage in Gaza, we must do everything we can to address complicity in that unrelenting horror,” it reads.
According to the organizers, the mass declaration was inspired by Filmmakers United Against Apartheid, founded by Jonathan Demme, Martin Scorsese and 100 other prominent filmmakers in 1987 to demand that the U.S. film industry refuse to distribute films in apartheid South Africa.
“The vast majority of Israeli film production and distribution companies, sales agents, cinemas and other film institutions have never endorsed the full, internationally-recognized rights of the Palestinian people,” said Film Workers for Palestine.
“What we have been witnessing in Gaza over the past two years shocks the conscience,” said Einbinder. “As a Jewish American citizen whose tax dollars directly fund Israel’s assault on Gaza, I feel we must do everything in our power to end the genocide. At this pivotal moment, given the failure of our leaders, artists have to step up and refuse complicity.”
Last year, a similar pledge was signed by more than 7000 authors and book workers, including Sally Rooney and Viet Thanh Nguyen, boycotting “complicit” Israeli publishers.
See the full filmmaker pledge below:
As filmmakers, actors, film industry workers, and institutions, we recognize the power of cinema to shape perceptions. In this urgent moment of crisis, where many of our governments are enabling the carnage in Gaza, we must do everything we can to address complicity in that unrelenting horror.
The world’s highest court, the International Court of Justice, has ruled that there is a plausible risk of genocide in Gaza, and that Israel’s occupation and apartheid against Palestinians are unlawful. Standing for equality, justice, and freedom for all people is a profound moral duty that none of us can ignore. So too, we must speak out now against the harm done to the Palestinian people.
We answer the call of Palestinian filmmakers, who have urged the international film industry to refuse silence, racism, and dehumanization, as well as to “do everything humanly possible” to end complicity in their oppression.
Inspired by Filmmakers United Against Apartheid who refused to screen their films in apartheid South Africa, we pledge not to screen films, appear at or otherwise work with Israeli film institutions—including festivals, cinemas, broadcasters and production companies—that are implicated* in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people.
* Examples of complicity include whitewashing or justifying genocide and apartheid, and/or partnering with the government committing them.
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