More than 80 film industry figures, including actors Javier Bardem and Tilda Swinton issue a statement seen today slamming the Berlin Film Festival’s “silence” on Gaza.
The signatories to the open letter, obtained by AFP, say that they are “appalled by Berlinale’s institutional silence” on the issue after jury president Wim Wenders answered a question on Gaza last week by saying: “We cannot really enter the field of politics.”
The remark has prompted a backlash, including the decision by award-winning Indian novelist Arundhati Roy to withdraw from the festival, where she had been due to present a restored version of a 1989 film she wrote, “In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones.”
“It is hard to see the Berlinale and so many hundreds of filmmakers and people who work on this festival distilled into something we do not always recognize in the online and media discourse,” festival director Tricia Tuttle said in a statement days ago.
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