{"id":25740,"date":"2026-02-26T20:02:04","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T20:02:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/25740\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T20:02:04","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T20:02:04","slug":"israeli-director-tom-shoval-backs-berlin-festival-director","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/25740\/","title":{"rendered":"Israeli Director Tom Shoval Backs Berlin Festival Director"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIsraeli director Tom Shoval (Letter to David) has lent his support to the growing chorus of film industry voices in support of beleaguered Berlin Film Festival director Tricia Tuttle<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI believe in the festival and in Tricia,\u201d Shoval tells The Hollywood Reporter. \u201cShe\u2019s been doing an incredible job under impossible conditions. She\u2019s not the one who should be under fire.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHundreds of directors and actors have rallied in support of Tuttle in response to media reports that she could be fired after controversy erupted over pro-Palestinian speeches at Saturday\u2019s closing gala, one of which accused the German government of being \u201cpartners in the genocide.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGermany\u2019s culture minister, Wolfram Weimer, convened a crisis meeting<\/a> on Thursday with Tuttle and the festival\u2019s supervisory board to discuss the \u201cfuture direction of the Berlinale<\/a>.\u201d Weimer\u2019s office issued a brief statement following the meeting, saying only that discussions \u201cabout the direction of the Berlinale will continue in the coming days.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tTuttle\u2019s future at the festival, where she is two years into a five-year contract, remains uncertain.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe American festival director came under fire <\/a>from conservative media in Germany after Saturday\u2019s Berlinale award ceremony. Syrian-Palestinian director Abdallah al-Khatib, who won the best first feature award for his drama Chronicles From the Siege, used his acceptance speech to criticize Israel and Germany sharply. German tabloid Bild also took offense over a picture, taken a week earlier, that showed Tuttle posing with al-Khatib\u2019s film team, several of whom were wearing keffiyeh scarves, with one holding a Palestinian flag. As the Berlinale noted, the festival director commonly takes pictures with the film crews during the festival.<\/p>\n

\n\tShoval attended the Berlinale this year with a recut version of his documentary A Letter to David, his tribute to actor friend David Cunio, who was taken hostage by Hamas on Oct. 7 and only recently released. The first version of A Letter to David <\/a>screened at the Berlinale last year, Tuttle\u2019s first year in charge.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe Trisha that I met and talked to was somebody with a lot of integrity and human instinct,\u201d Shoval tells THR. \u201cShe saw the suffering of [David\u2019s] family. She kept the political thing aside and was willing to do whatever it takes to bring the film to the Berlinale, to screen it, to create awareness, but also to give us a safe place to to talk about to talk about art, but also to talk about David without feeling attacked.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs head of the Berlinale, Tuttle has \u201ca vision of trying to bring the Berlinale back to what it used to be, a platform where everybody can say whatever they want and feel safe to do so,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile the comments made by Al-Khatib and others at this year\u2019s awards \u201cmight be uneasy to hear,\u201d he says, \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s the whole story of the Berlinale.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNearly 700 filmmakers, including Hollywood luminaries Tilda Swinton, Sean Baker and Todd Haynes, signed a petition backing Tuttle<\/a>. Other signatories include Germany\u2019s Ilker \u00c7atak, whose drama, Yellow Letters, about the threat to artistic freedom under an authoritarian government \u2014 set in Turkey but shot in Germany \u2014 won the Berlinale\u2019s 2026 Golden Bear for best film.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe German and European film academies, the Jerusalem and Haifa film festivals, and some 500 Berlinale staff members have also thrown their support behind Tuttle.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI really hope Tricia stays in her position,\u201d says Shoval. \u201cI know that\u2019s even if she stays, she\u2019s now under a lot of pressure, but I think she\u2019s the person to handle it. Her integrity is very important to the festival. I think she needs all the help she can get.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Israeli director Tom Shoval (Letter to David) has lent his support to the growing chorus of film industry…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25741,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[99],"tags":[112,760,761,190,762,12073,4653],"class_list":["post-25740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-berlin","tag-berlin","tag-berlin-2026","tag-berlinale","tag-germany","tag-international","tag-israel-gaza-conflict","tag-tricia-tuttle"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25740","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=25740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}