Hundreds of major actors and filmmakers have signed a pledge stating that they won’t work with Israeli film institutions “implicated in genocide and apartheid” against Palestinians
Ayo Edebiri, Olivia Coleman, Tilda Swinton, Joe Alwyn and Aimee Lou Wood are among hundreds of famous names who have signed a pledge against working with Israeli film groups.
On September 8, over 1300 filmmakers, including BAFTA, Emmy, Cannes and Venice Film award winners, launched a pledge against working with Israeli film institutions “implicated in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people.”
The pledge states: “As filmmakers, actors, film industry workers, and institutions, we recognize the power of cinema to shape perceptions. In this urgent moment of crisis, where many of our governments are enabling the carnage in Gaza, we must do everything we can to address complicity in that unrelenting horror.”
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It commits its signatories not to screen films, appear at or otherwise work with Israeli film institutions that they consider complicit, which includes festivals, cinemas, broadcasters and production companies.
According to the pledge, examples of complicity include “whitewashing or justifying genocide and apartheid, and/or partnering with the government committing them.”
It comes as a response to calls from Palestinian filmmakers “who have urged the international film industry to refuse silence, racism, and dehumanization, as well as to ‘do everything humanly possible’ to end complicity in their oppression.”
In August, Variety reported that a group of almost 70 Palestinian filmmakers signed a letter in which they accused Hollywood of “dehumanising” Palestinians and called on their international colleagues in the film industry “to speak out against this genocide”.
The pledge was published by Film Workers for Palestine and claims to draw inspiration from Filmmakers United Against Apartheid, which was founded in 1987 to demand that the US film industry refuse to distribute films to apartheid South Africa.
Screenwriter and director David Farr, who was among the signatories, said: “As the descendant of Holocaust survivors, I am distressed and enraged by the actions of the Israeli state, which has for decades enforced an apartheid system on the Palestinian people whose land they have taken, and which is now perpetuating genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza. In this context I cannot support my work being published or performed in Israel.”
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This comes after the UK government has concluded that Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza, according to a government letter. This is despite Israel being widely accused of the crime, including by the world’s leading association of genocide scholars.
Reuters reports that over 64,000 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war, according to officials. As reported by Al Jazeera, more than 18,000 have been children.
Kristyan Benedict, Crisis Response Manager for Amnesty International, a global human rights organisation which concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza last year, has criticised the UK’s conclusion as “a cynical misrepresentation of what the International Court of Justice ruled in 2024”.
In 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that the claim of genocide in Gaza was “plausible” and acknowledged that “the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is at serious risk of deteriorating further before the Court renders its final judgment.”
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