Berlin Film Festival braces for protests over war between Israel and Hamas – The Hollywood Reporter

The Berlin International Film Festival, which begins on February 15, is already bracing for protests and debate surrounding the ongoing war in the Middle East, the kind that have rocked film festivals around the world in the months since the Hamas movement in October. 7 attacks on Israel and the Israeli invasion of Gaza.

At the Sundance Film Festival in January, several hundred pro-Palestinian protesters, including actresses Melissa Barrera and Indya Moore, blocked traffic on Main Street in Park City. In November, the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) was caught between protesters on both sides, with several directors withdrawing their films in protest over IDFA’s statements in reference to the war.

The Berlinale, the world’s largest public film festival – and by some measures the most political among major festivals – is set to become a focal point for similar demonstrations and debates.

But Berlin is different. Confrontations over the events in Gaza are unlikely to involve only activists and filmmakers. It is also possible that the German government, the main financial backer of the Berlinale, along with the country’s cultural and political elite, will be drawn into the fray.

Berlin is different because Germany is different. In the country that carried out the Holocaust, discussions of Israel are framed differently than they are in Amsterdam or Park City.

German history is literally the backdrop to the Berlinale. Less than a mile from the festival’s red carpet is the Holocaust Memorial at Marlene Dietrich Platz – a square named after the German film star who fled Hitler for Hollywood. In concrete slabs resembling tombstone projections, the memorial is a reminder of the millions of Jews murdered in Europe by the Nazis. This history – Germany’s political and social response to the Holocaust, is sometimes referred to as erinrungscultur, Or the culture of remembering – will always be at the heart of any discussion in Berlin about Israel and Palestine.

“The Berlinale has in the past been very politically active – we saw strong support for Ukraine at the festival last year, (and) after the Arab Spring, the festival quickly created a special section of acts from the region,” says Christian. Berndt is a film reviewer and cultural journalist for German public broadcaster Deutschlandfunk. “But it is particularly difficult for a German cultural institution like the Berlinale to have this discussion about the war in Gaza.”

Ahead of the festival, Berlinale co-directors Mariette Riesenbeek and Carlo Chatrian tried to strike a balance, saying their sympathy “goes out to all the victims of humanitarian crises in the Middle East and elsewhere.” They expressed concern about the rise of “anti-Semitism, anti-Muslim resentment and hate speech” in Germany and around the world, and said that, as a cultural institution, they “take a firm stance against all forms of discrimination and are committed to cultural exchange.” to understand.”

Many of the films included in this year’s official Berlinale selection could serve as a starting point for the “peaceful dialogue” that Riesenbeck and Chatrian are calling for. there No other land, is being shown in the documentary section of Berlin’s Panorama sidebar, about Israeli settler violence in the West Bank, directed by a Palestinian-Israeli group. Or Andre Cohen Holy week In the forum section dealing with racism and anti-Semitism and also communal life between Christians and Jews in Romania around 1900. Or treasure, A 1990s-set drama from German director Julia von Heyns and starring Lena Dunham and Stephen Fry about the impact of the Holocaust on generations.

The Berlinale Festival is also collaborating with social activists in Berlin to create an intimate space for festival-goers to discuss and debate the crisis in the Middle East. The ‘Tiny Space’ project will see the festival set up a small cabin-like structure near the Berlinale’s red carpet for three days, from Saturday 17 February to Monday 19 February, from 10am to 6pm daily, where people can come to talk about… “Aspects of the war, but also the conflict in the Middle East in general.”

“Right now, in society, it has become very difficult to bring both sides of the debate (about the war in Gaza) in one room, you are forced to side with one side or the other,” says Chatrin. “What we like to do as a festival is provide a place where dialogue is possible. We believe dialogue is possible if we start with small groups (and) provide a space where some arguments or some feelings can be dealt with better than on a stage with 500 or 1,000 people.

But two directors who were scheduled to come to Berlin have already withdrawn. Ayo Tsalithaba, a Toronto-based artist and filmmaker, originally from Ghana and Lesotho who uses they/them pronouns, has withdrawn his film Arriving in the atmosphereand Indian-American artist Sunil Sanzgiri pulled it Two rejections (Will we acknowledge ourselves without interruption?). Both films are set to premiere in the expanded section of the Berlinale Experimental Film Forum. Both Tsalithaba and Sanzgiri announced their support for “Germany Strike,” an online petition started early this year that calls for a boycott of all state-sponsored cultural institutions in Germany. (The Berlinale Festival receives annual funding of approximately $14 million from the German Federal Ministry for Culture and Information.) On its website, Germany Strike calls on “global cultural workers” to withhold their “work and presence” from German cultural institutions, film festivals and films. Paintings and exhibitions until the Berlin government ends what the group calls “its McCarthyite policies that suppress freedom of expression, specifically expressions of solidarity with Palestine.”

The Strike Germany campaign was started by an anonymous group that describes itself on its website as “a broad coalition of Berlin-based artists, filmmakers, writers and cultural workers.” Strike Germany did not respond to emails from THR Ask for more details about the group.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be an artist right now, and what it means to be a politically conscious person – as I always have been throughout my life,” Tsalithaba says. “I’m not someone who censors myself. I also wanted to make sure that I would be safe and not targeted (for my opinions). And there’s clearly a push toward silence or complicity. We see that in Canada and the world: large cultural institutions silencing their workers and trying to deflect attention from the statements.” Frankly, what is happening in Gaza is horrific.

The “Germany Strike” protests indicate the German government’s strong support for Israel before and after the start of the war in Gaza. During a visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shortly after the October 7 attacks, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz described Israel’s security as “Germany’s security.”Statsrason“(State Cause). In 2019, Germany’s parliament, the Bundestag, passed a non-binding resolution condemning the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which calls for a boycott of Israel and Israeli institutions, as “anti-Semitic” and called on government bodies to sever Funding for any organization that “actively supports” the BDS movement.

“It’s not just about a Berlinale or a particular cultural institution,” says Tsalithaba. “I don’t want to focus on the Berlinale but on the calls that are coming from groups like Strike Germany, like Filmmakers for Palestine and countless other groups that are calling not only for an immediate ceasefire but also for a refocusing of our efforts. Combating anti-Semitism and a deep awareness of colonial systems.” Which led to the violence of the occupation and holding accountable the institutions and governments complicit in the enslavement of the Palestinians.

At the state level, Berlin Culture Senator Joe Chiallo changed public funding laws earlier this year, adding an “anti-discrimination” provision that specifically highlighted anti-Semitism and would prevent funding for artists or groups. That express anti-Semitic, racist, or otherwise marginalizing views. However, Ciallo quickly reversed course, after several artists suggested that the clause as written constituted government censorship and would be illegal under Berlin’s constitution.

But calling such developments “McCarthyism” or “neo-fascism,” as strike Germany did, “is outrageous and wrong,” Berndt says. “There is no government censorship in Germany. There is simply a different sensibility. Things like calling for a boycott of Israel, as the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement does, remind Germans of the anti-Jewish laws of the Nazis.”

“I see these anonymous campaigns (like the Germany strike campaign) as frankly a form of blackmail because there is no person or institution you can discuss with, so there is no dialogue possible,” says Lars Henrik Gass, director of the Oberhausen Short Film Festival. He adds: “There seems to be a desire among some filmmakers to be free from opposing viewpoints (at film festivals).” “But there is no such guarantee at the festival. This goes against the whole purpose of the festival, which is to provide a forum for debate and discord. Otherwise we could have one festival for Israeli filmmakers and another for Palestinian filmmakers.”

What further fuels the fire of this debate within Germany is the rise of the Alternative for Germany party, a far-right party that enjoys support of about 20% among national voters. The Alternative for Germany party supports anti-immigrant policies, and its leaders often use openly racist, anti-Muslim, and anti-Semitic rhetoric.

News that the Berlinale had invited two elected members of the AfD to attend the festival’s opening night gala – standard protocol for a state-backed festival – sparked a separate protest, with more than 200 film professionals writing an open letter calling the move a violation of Berlin law. . The ethical principles of the festival. This is something Risenbeck denies.

“I think we have made it very clear that we do not agree with the AfD. On the contrary, we have the exact opposite opinion. “But we do not only invite people who agree with us to the Berlinale,” she says. “I think it is stronger.” To give a clear statement of our values ​​on stage at the opening ceremony and in the media: to say (to the AfD) that we will not prevent you from attending, but your values ​​are not represented here.”

What makes the matter more complicated is that the Alternative for Germany party in the past also supported the right-wing government in Israel. In 2019, it proposed a tougher anti-BDS resolution, calling for a total ban on BDS in Germany.

“It is unfortunate that being both pro-Israeli government and openly anti-Semitic is not a contradiction in terms,” says Leah Wohl von Haselberg, co-director of the Jewish Film Festival Berlin-Brandenburg, Germany’s largest Jewish film festival. She condemns the polarizing debate about the war in German media and cultural circles, noting that viewpoints that do not fit the simplistic pro-Israel versus pro-Palestinian narrative are often ignored.

“We have close relationships with Israeli filmmakers, most of whom are strongly opposed to the current Israeli government,” she says. “But such contradictory or complex views do not receive much attention in the media here.”

Instead of the controversy of boycotts and protests, von Haselberg says the focus at an international festival like the Berlinale should be on the films themselves.

“Most films, most good films, are about complexity and contrast,” she says. “We will never accept a film into our festival that presents the debate (about Israel and Palestine) in such simplistic and polarizing terms.”

Add treasure Director von Heinz: “The Berlinale should be a place where we can come together and have a dialogue. This is the opposite of a boycott.”

This story first appeared in the February 7 issue of The Hollywood Reporter. Click here to subscribe.