The German Government has attacked the Berlinale, the Berlin film festival, for the expressions of support for Gaza by some winners at Saturday’s awards gala, which politicians from different parties judge to be anti-Semitic for not including references to the attack. Hamas of October 7 as the origin of Israel’s military offensive.
Since then, criticism of the festival’s organizers has intensified, to the point that the Minister of Culture, the green Claudia Roth, and the mayor-governor of Berlin, the Christian Democrat Kai Wegner, announced an investigation to clarify what happened and prevent, according to They said, let it repeat itself. The federal government and the city-state of Berlin are the funders of the festival.
“It is unacceptable that the Hamas terrorist attack of October 7 was not mentioned; “This is the position of the federal government,” said Executive Vice Spokesperson Christiane Hoffmann at a routine press conference on Monday in Berlin. Hoffmann added that the chancellor, the social democrat Olaf Scholz, believes that “such a unilateral position cannot be allowed, and that in any debate on this issue it is important to keep in mind what was the event that caused this new escalation of the conflict.”
According to the Minister of Justice, the liberal Marco Buschmann, the good name of the Berlinale “has suffered damage because expressions of anti-Semitism were allowed without anyone standing up to them.” Speaking to the Funke media group, the minister said that, although the criminal relevance of what happened during the awards ceremony is a matter for the courts, the political judgment is clear: “Anti-Semitism is intolerable.”
In Germany, where the memory of the Nazi crimes against millions of Jews in the Holocaust is very present, the political class and the media handle few nuances about the current war in the Middle East, with a clear pro-Israel stance and little reference to the suffering and death of Palestinians.
The controversial words at the gala did not come from those awarded the Golden Bear and Silver Bears in the main section – although Mati Diop, winner of the Bear, expressed her support for Palestine – but from those awarded in other sections. The award for best documentary went to No Other Land about the demolitions in the West Bank, by a Palestinian-Israeli collective of filmmakers. The Palestinian Basel Adra and the Israeli Yuval Abraham came on stage to pick it up.
Palestinian Adra demanded that Germany stop supplying weapons to Israel and said it was difficult for him to celebrate the award while “tens of thousands of people are being massacred by Israel in Gaza,” while Israeli Abraham spoke of occupation and a “situation of apartheid.” The audience at the Berlinale Palast applauded his remarks.
This Wednesday Yuval Abraham revealed on the Tuesday night. “You can harshly criticize what Basel and I said on stage without demonizing ourselves. If that’s what you do with your guilt over the Holocaust, I don’t want your guilt,” Abraham wrote, recalling that his grandfather’s side of the family was murdered in Nazi death camps.
Another moment that has sparked criticism was when the American Ben Russell, co-director with Guillaume Cailleau of the film Direct action, awarded best film in the Encounters section and with a special mention in the best documentary category, appeared on stage with the Palestinian scarf. . “Of course, we defend life here and oppose genocide, and we call for a ceasefire in solidarity with all our comrades,” Russell said to applause from the audience.
The mayor-governor of Berlin, Kai Wegner, wrote on the social network artistic”. Wegner assured that “Berlin has a clear position on freedom. Berlin is firmly on Israel’s side. There is no doubt about that. Full responsibility for the deep suffering in Israel and the Gaza Strip lies with Hamas. Only [Hamas] has it in its power to put an end to this suffering by releasing all the hostages and laying down their weapons.”
Kai Wegner also warned that he hopes that “the new management of the Berlinale will ensure that these types of incidents do not happen again.” Indeed, this was the last achievement of the two-headed direction formed by the Italian Carlo Chatrian (artistic director) and the Dutch Mariette Rissenbeek (executive director), which premiered at the 2020 festival. As planned, the duo will be replaced in April by the American Tricia Tuttle, thus returning to the single direction.