More than 1,000 filmmakers, actors and industry professionals, including prominent Hollywood figures like Olivia Colman, Ava DuVernay and Tilda Swinton, have signed a pledge not to work with certain Israeli film institutions.
The pledge was made in an open letter published on Monday by Film Workers for Palestine, a group that campaigns for the end of the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.
“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,” the letter read.
The signatories, which also include the director Adam McKay, the actor Mark Ruffalo and the actress Ayo Edebiri, pledged not to screen films, appear at or otherwise work with Israeli cinemas, broadcasters and production companies that, in their view, “are implicated in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people.”
The group said it had been inspired by Filmmakers United Against Apartheid, a movement that in the 1980s worked to end apartheid in South Africa.
Last month, a group of academic experts known as the International Association of Genocide Scholars declared that Israel’s actions in Gaza had met the legal definition of genocide. According to Gaza health officials, more than 60,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, which began when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people. Experts in food security have found famine in parts of the Gaza Strip, an assertion refuted by Israel.
In a statement last week, a spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry called the conclusion by the International Association of Genocide Scholars “an embarrassment to the legal profession and to any academic standard,” and said it was “entirely based on Hamas’s campaign of lies and the laundering of those lies by others.”
Film Workers for Palestine said its pledge did not prohibit working with Israeli individuals. “The call is for film workers to refuse to work with Israeli institutions that are complicit in Israel’s human rights abuses against the Palestinian people,” it said on its website. “This refusal takes aim at institutional complicity, not identity.”
The organization said that while a few Israeli film entities “are not complicit,” a vast majority of the country’s “film production and distribution companies, sales agents, cinemas and other film institutions have never endorsed the full, internationally recognized rights of the Palestinian people.”
The group added that Israel’s major film festivals, including the Jerusalem Film Festival, continue to partner with the Israeli government.
Other signatories of the pledge include the actress Cynthia Nixon and Yorgos Lanthimos, the director of the upcoming film “Bugonia.” Javier Bardem, Susan Sarandon and Indya Moore partnered with Film Workers for Palestine on Instagram to share a post explaining the pledge.
The pledge comes after a recent pro-Palestinian demonstration at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival drew thousands of participants.
That protest gained momentum after Venice4Palestine, a group of Italian and international film professionals, released an open letter demanding that the festival condemn the destruction and suffering caused by Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
Derrick Bryson Taylor is a Times reporter covering breaking news in culture and the arts.
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