Sept 1, 2022
Boycott of Israeli film fund by Israeli filmmakers
In a significant development against Israel’s use of culture to attempt to hide and normalise it’s crimes against Palestinians, key Israeli film directors and creatives have called out Israel’s apartheid, occupation and art-washing in a public letter declaring they will boycott a government film fund aimed at supporting Israeli film makers working in illegal occupied Palestinian territories.
Some 140 Israeli filmmakers have declared that they will refuse to do business with an Israeli film fund that operates in the West Bank. In a public letter organized by filmmakers Avi Mograbi, Rachel Leah Jones, Liran Atzmor, Yasmin Kini, Noam Sheizaf and others, they state that they will not cooperate with the Samaria Film Fund: They will not apply to it for grants, they will not participate in its projects and they will not be employed by it. They write that the endowment “is not a pluralistic fund, but rather part of the apartheid mechanism.”
“Behind this festival, as well as behind the establishment of the Samaria Film Fund, is not the love of culture but politics, which aims to erase the Green Line and the distinction between a military and civilian regime,” the letter from the filmmakers states. “Therefore, it is unsurprising that leading this political foundation are Esther Allouche, the spokesperson of the Samaria Regional Council, and Yossi Dagan, the chairman of the Samaria Regional Council. The foundation and the festival invite Israeli creators to take an active part in whitewashing the occupation in exchange for financial support and prizes.”
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