Oscar winner Jane Campion (Best Director, 2021), and Basque filmmaker Estíbaliz Urresola Solaguren are among those to ask for their films to be withdrawn from the Jerusalem Film Festival, which ends tomorrow.
At least three other directors, from the US and UK, also did so. Campion’s 1989 film Sweetie, and Urresola’s debut feature 20,000 Species of Bees, were expected to screen at the festival this week.
Award-winning screenwriter, producer and director James Schamus, co-founder and former CEO of Focus Features, reacted to the news:
“Last year, Emma Watson spoke for a growing chorus of international cultural workers in support of Palestinian rights when she attested that ‘solidarity is a verb.’
This summer, as the world watches the Israeli government ramp up its assaults on and dispossession of Jerusalem’s Palestinian residents, filmmakers are bravely taking that phrase to heart.”
https://bdsmovement.net/jerusalem-film-festival-2023