{"id":16841,"date":"2026-02-18T02:01:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T02:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/16841\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T02:01:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T02:01:20","slug":"tilda-swinton-javier-bardem-alia-shawkat-and-more-sign-open-letter-slamming-berlin-film-festival-over-gaza-silence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/16841\/","title":{"rendered":"Tilda Swinton, Javier Bardem, Alia Shawkat and More Sign Open Letter Slamming Berlin Film Festival Over Gaza ‘Silence’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tilda Swinton, Javier Bardem, Alia Shawkat and more than 80 entertainment figures, all past and present participants of the Berlinale, have come together in an open letter slamming the film festival over its \u201csilence\u201d on Gaza.<\/p>\n

Other signatures on letter are from notable Hollywood figures, including Adam McKaty, Tobias Menzies and Mike Leigh.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe write as film workers, all of us past and current Berlinale participants, who expect the institutions in our industry to refuse complicity in the terrible violence that continues to be waged against Palestinians,\u201d the open letter, which was released Tuesday, per reports. <\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Natalie\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are dismayed at the Berlinale\u2019s involvement in censoring artists who oppose Israel\u2019s ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and the German state\u2019s key role in enabling it,\u201d the letter continues. \u201cAs the Palestine Film Institute has stated, the festival has been \u2018policing filmmakers alongside a continued commitment to collaborate with Federal Police on their investigations.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The group\u2019s letter comes after German filmmaker and photographer Wim Wenders<\/a>, who is also president of the International Jury for the 76th Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale), stated that \u201cwe should stay out of politics\u201d after being questioned about the festival\u2019s stance on\u00a0the Israel-Gaza war<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Wenders leads this year\u2019s international jury, which also includes American filmmaker Reinaldo Marcus Green (\u201cKing Richard\u201d), Polish film producer Ewa Puszczy\u0144ska (\u201cThe Zone of Interest\u201d), Nepalese director Min Bahadur Bham (\u201cShambala\u201d), South Korean actress Bae Doona (\u201cSense8\u201d), Indian filmmaker Shivendra Singh Dungarpur (\u201cCelluloid Man\u201d) and Japanese filmmaker Hikari (\u201cRental Family\u201d).<\/p>\n

At the time, he said the jury is \u201cthe counterweight of politics.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are the opposite of politics.We have to do the work of people, not the work of politicians,\u201d the \u201cPerfect Days\u201d filmmaker added. Earlier, when the jury was asked if films have the power to change the world, Wenders responded, \u201cMovies can change the world, not in a political way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo movie has really changed any politician\u2019s idea, but you can change people\u2019s idea of how they should live,\u201d Wenders mentioned. \u201cCinema has an incredible power of being compassionate and being empathetic. The news [is] not, politics [is] not empathetic. But movies are.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a big discrepancy on this planet between people who want to live their lives and governments who have other ideas,\u201d he concluded. \u201cI think films enter that discrepancy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The message concluded its message by calling on the festival to oppose Israel\u2019s \u201cgenocide.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe call on the Berlinale to fulfill its moral duty and clearly state its opposition to Israel\u2019s genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes against Palestinians, and completely end its involvement in shielding Israel from criticism and calls for accountability,\u201d it concludes.<\/p>\n

Check out the full letter below:<\/p>\n

We write as film workers, all of us past and current Berlinale participants, who expect the institutions in our industry to refuse complicity in the terrible violence that continues to be waged against Palestinians. We are dismayed at the Berlinale\u2019s involvement in censoring artists who oppose Israel\u2019s ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and the German state\u2019s key role in enabling it. As the Palestine Film Institute has stated, the festival has been \u201cpolicing filmmakers alongside a continued commitment to collaborate with Federal Police on their investigations\u201d.<\/p>\n

\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Martin\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

Last year, filmmakers who spoke out for Palestinian life and liberty from the Berlinale stage reported being aggressively reprimanded by senior festival programmers. One filmmaker was reported \u200bt\u200bo have been investigated by police, and Berlinale leadership falsely implied that \u200bt\u200bhe filmmaker\u2019s moving speech \u2013 rooted in international law and solidarity \u2013 was \u201cdiscriminatory\u201d. As another filmmaker told Film Workers for Palestine\u200b about last year\u2019s festival: \u201cthere was a feeling of paranoia in the air, of not being protected and of being persecuted, which I had never felt before at a film festival\u201d. We stand with our colleagues in rejecting this institutional repression and anti-Palestinian racism.<\/p>\n

We fervently disagree with \u200bthe statement made by Berlinale\u200b 2026 jury president Wim Wenders\u200b that filmmaking is \u201cthe opposite of politics\u201d\u200b. You cannot separate one from the other. We are deeply concerned that the German state-funded Berlinale is helping put into practice what Irene Khan, the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Opinion recently condemned as Germany\u2019s misuse of draconian legislation \u201cto restrict advocacy for Palestinian rights, chilling public participation and shrinking discourse in academia and the arts\u201d\u200b. This is also what Ai Weiwei recently described\u200b as Germany \u201cdoing what they did in the 1930s\u201d\u200b (agreeing with his interviewer who suggested to him that \u201cit\u2019s the same fascist impulse, just a different target\u200b\u201d). All of this at a time when we are learning horrifying new details about the 2,842 Palestinians \u201cevaporated\u201d by Israeli forces using internationally prohibited, U.S.-made thermal and thermobaric weapons. Despite abundant evidence of Israel\u2019s genocidal intent, systematic atrocity crimes and ethnic cleansing, Germany continues to supply Israel with weapons used to exterminate Palestinians in Gaza.<\/p>\n

The tide is changing across the international film world. Many international film festivals have endorsed the cultural boycott of apartheid Israel, including the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam, the world\u2019s biggest, as well as BlackStar Film Festival in the U.S., and Film Fest Gent, Belgium\u2019s largest. More than 5,000 film workers, including leading Hollywood and international figures, have also announced their refusal to work with complicit Israeli film companies and institutions.<\/p>\n

Yet Berlinale has so far not even met the demands of its community to issue a statement that affirms the Palestinian right to life, dignity, and freedom; condemns the ongoing Israeli genocide of Palestinians; and commits to uphold the right of artists to speak without constraint in support of Palestinian human rights. This is the least it can \u2013 and should \u2013 do.<\/p>\n

As the Palestine Film Institute has said, \u201cwe are appalled by Berlinale\u2019s institutional silence on the genocide of Palestinians, and its unwillingness to defend the freedoms of speech and expression of filmmakers\u201d. Just as \u200bt\u200bhe festival has \u200bm\u200bade clear statements \u200bin the past about atrocities \u200bcarried out against\u200b people in Iran and Ukrain\u200be, we call on the Berlinale to fulfil its moral duty and clearly state its opposition to Israel\u2019s genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes against Palestinians, and completely end its involvement in shielding Israel from criticism and calls for accountability.<\/p>\n

The 2026 Berlinale is set to kick off Thursday night with Shahrbanoo Sadat\u2019s film \u201cNo Good Men\u201d and will run until Feb. 22.<\/p>\n

\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Wim\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tilda Swinton, Javier Bardem, Alia Shawkat and more than 80 entertainment figures, all past and present participants of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16842,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[12212,112,3146,190,12010,12008],"class_list":{"0":"post-16841","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-berlin","8":"tag-alia-shawkat","9":"tag-berlin","10":"tag-berlin-film-festival","11":"tag-germany","12":"tag-javier-bardem","13":"tag-tilda-swinton"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}