Name: Filmmakers condemn Berlinale film festival for 'silence' over Gaza | DW News
Uploaded: 2026-02-18T17:01:41.000Z
Duration: 6 min 18 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Well, the Berlin International Film Festival, the Berlinale, is experiencing a major controversy.

More than 80 current and former participants in the festival.

It condemned its stance on the Gaza conflict in an open letter published by industry magazine Variety.

They said they were appalled by the festival's failure to take a clear position on Israel's war in Gaza and have accused Balynada of institutional silence.

Among the signatories are actors Javier Badem and Tilda Swinton.

We are dismayed at the Berlinatis involvement in censoring artists who oppose Israel's ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and the German state's key role in enabling it.

The head of the film festival's jury, German director Wim Benders, has not reacted to the letter, but

at the beginning of the festival, he suggested filmmakers should stay out of politics.

We have to stay out of politics, because if we made movies that are dedicatedly political, we enter the field of politics.

But we are the counterweight to politics.

We have to do the work of people and not the work of politicians.

Well, our cinema expert, Scott Roxborough is with me here in the studio.

Scott, the signatories of that open letter criticizing the bag.

They accused the festival's management of censorship.

Actually, they made a couple of claims in the letter.

One is that they called on the festival to take a clear stance on Israel's aggression in the Gaza war.

Although they've taken stances with the war on Ukraine, from Russia's side, and on Iran's crackdown on protesters.

They haven't taken an official stance on Gaza.

But the critique of censorship I don't really see any evidence for.

They are saying that they are muzzling voices, pro Palestinian voices, people who want to speak out against Israel.

But we did see just a couple of days ago, a Finnish film director wearing watermelon pin, which is a symbol for support for Palestine, and

So I don't really understand how they can accuse the festival of censorship.

Maybe I think they want them to take a stronger political stance that they're not at the moment doing.

Wim Venders, the famous director, is head of the jury for this year's festival.

He made that statement saying that we have to stay out of politics.

But the Berlinale, it's always been political, hasn't it?

Yeah, I mean, from the start, it's always been a big festival with big Hollywood films, but

also a lot of sort of politically important cinema gets shown in Berlin.

And it's always been used as a platform for filmmakers and for artists to express political views.

With Vin Venders, who I've known for many, many years, and

I've followed his career for decades, I think it was a very awkward response to a question he wasn't expecting about Gaza and Israel.

And I would think I haven't spoken to him since, but

I would think that he meant more that he didn't think filmmaking should be about policy, should be about supporting a political party or that kind of politics.

But the idea that one could accuse vim vendors of not having a political stance, of not being in support of human rights and so forth, that ignores his entire career, both as a filmmaker and as a person.

How did the Gaza war become such a topic and a controversial topic at this particular film festival?

Basically goes back two years ago, 2024, when you had a documentary film, an Israeli Palestinian documentary film about settler violence, Israeli settler violence in the West Bank.

The filmmakers on stage made very strong pro Palestinian statements and very harsh critique of Israel on stage to the general support of the audience.

Afterwards, there was a strong political backlash here in Germany.

A lot of conservative politic were very critical of what happened there, and

some even called for defunding the belli nala.

And so it sort of made Palestine, particularly this issue of Palestine and Gaza, central to how the belli nala is being seen.

And it's put the festival management in a very awkward position of either having to take a very strong statement or position on the issue in Israel, Gaza, maybe in opposition to the German government, who are their main funders, or trying to be new neutral in some way.

And it seems with this issue in particular, it's impossible to take a neutral stance.

I think a lot of activists would say you have to be on one side or the other.

It's diplomatically difficult territory for the festival management.

How dangerous is this discussion for the festival?

I think in some ways maybe this discussion itself is not so dangerous, but

focusing entirely on just political issues, and

particularly on this one very divisive political issue with Israel, Gaza could be very detrimental to the festival if Berlin's always been political.

There's always been political elements to the festival, but it always has been primarily about the cinema.

And if the focus entirely shifts towards politics, which it seems to be doing now.

I think that will be detrimental to the festival one, because a lot of filmmakers don't want to make politics the main focus of their, of their movies.

And so maybe they won't want to bring films here to Berlin.

And if Berlin decides to take clear political ideological stances on all issues, they're also going to isolate a large portion of the audience that maybe don't agree with them.

So I think they're in a very tough bind right now.

Subtitles ListPlay Video

Filmmakers condemn Berlinale film festival for 'silence' over Gaza | DW News

awkward

sort

experience

audience