Meira en 80 núverandi og fyrrverandi þátttakendur kvikmyndahátíðarinnar Berlinale hafa undirritað opið bréf þar sem þeir fordæma það sem þeir kalla „þögn“ hátíðarinnar um stríðið á Gaza og „ritskoðun“ á listamönnum sem hafa tjáð sig um málið.
Meðal undirritaðra eru leikararnir Tilda Swinton, Javier Bardem, Angeliki Papoulia, Saleh Bakri, Tatiana Maslany, Peter Mullan og Tobias Menzies, auk leikstjóra á borð við Mike Leigh, Lukas Dhont, Nan Goldin, Miguel Gomes, Adam McKay og Avi Mograbi. Í bréfinu segir að þau „geri þá kröfu til stofnana í kvikmyndaiðnaðinum að þær neiti að vera samsekir í hinu skelfilega ofbeldi sem áfram er beitt gegn Palestínumönnum“.
Bréfið birtist á miðri Berlinale-hátíðinni í ár, þar sem pólitík hefur orðið áberandi umræðuefni, ekki síst eftir ummæli dómnefndarformannsins Wim Wenders á opnunarfundinum. Þar sagði hann að „við ættum að halda okkur utan við pólitík“ og hélt því fram að kvikmyndagerð væri „andstæða pólitíkur“. Í kjölfarið birti hátíðarstjórinn Tricia Tuttle yfirlýsingu þar sem hún sagði: „Ekki er hægt að ætlast til þess að listamenn tjái sig um allar víðtækari umræður um fyrri eða núverandi starfshætti hátíðarinnar sem þeir hafa enga stjórn á.“
Í opna bréfinu segjast undirritaðir „algjörlega ósammála“ sýn Wenders. „Ekki er hægt að aðgreina þetta tvennt,“ segja þau og bæta við að „straumurinn sé að snúast í alþjóðlegum kvikmyndaheimi“. Þar vísa þau til þess að yfir 5.000 kvikmyndagerðarmenn, þar á meðal fjölmörg stór nöfn í Hollywood, hafi lýst því yfir að þau muni ekki starfa með „samsekum ísraelskum kvikmyndafyrirtækjum og stofnunum“.
Bréfið bendir jafnframt á að Berlinale hafi áður gefið út „skýrar yfirlýsingar“ um „grimmdarverk“ gegn fólki í Íran og Úkraínu.
„Við skorum á Berlinale að rækja siðferðilega skyldu sína og lýsa skýrt yfir andstöðu sinni við þjóðarmorð Ísraels, glæpi gegn mannkyni og stríðsglæpi gegn Palestínumönnum, og að hætta alfarið þátttöku sinni í því að verja Ísrael fyrir gagnrýni og kröfum um ábyrgð,“ segir í lokaorðum bréfsins.
Opna bréfið er dagsett 17. febrúar 2026 og ber undirskriftir fjölda þekktra listamanna og kvikmyndagerðarfólks víðs vegar að úr heiminum.
Opna bréfið í heild sinni
We write as film workers, all of us past and current Berlinale participants, who expect the institutions in our industry to refuse complicity in the terrible violence that continues to be waged against Palestinians. We are dismayed at the Berlinale’s involvement in censoring artists who oppose Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and the German state’s key role in enabling it. As the Palestine Film Institute has stated, the festival has been “policing filmmakers alongside a continued commitment to collaborate with Federal Police on their investigations”.
Last year, filmmakers who spoke out for Palestinian life and liberty from the Berlinale stage reported being aggressively reprimanded by senior festival programmers. One filmmaker was reported to have been investigated by police, and Berlinale leadership falsely implied that the filmmaker’s moving speech – rooted in international law and solidarity – was “discriminatory”. As another filmmaker told Film Workers for Palestine about last year’s festival: “there was a feeling of paranoia in the air, of not being protected and of being persecuted, which I had never felt before at a film festival”. We stand with our colleagues in rejecting this institutional repression and anti-Palestinian racism.
We fervently disagree with the statement made by Berlinale 2026 jury president Wim Wenders that filmmaking is “the opposite of politics”. You cannot separate one from the other. We are deeply concerned that the German state-funded Berlinale is helping put into practice what Irene Khan, the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Opinion recently condemned as Germany’s misuse of draconian legislation “to restrict advocacy for Palestinian rights, chilling public participation and shrinking discourse in academia and the arts”. This is also what Ai Weiwei recently described as Germany “doing what they did in the 1930s” (agreeing with his interviewer who suggested to him that “it’s the same fascist impulse, just a different target”). All of this at a time when we are learning horrifying new details about the 2,842 Palestinians “evaporated” by Israeli forces using internationally prohibited, U.S.-made thermal and thermobaric weapons. Despite abundant evidence of Israel’s genocidal intent, systematic atrocity crimes and ethnic cleansing, Germany continues to supply Israel with weapons used to exterminate Palestinians in Gaza.
The tide is changing across the international film world. Many international film festivals have endorsed the cultural boycott of apartheid Israel, including the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam, the world’s biggest, as well as BlackStar Film Festival in the U.S., and Film Fest Gent, Belgium’s largest. More than 5,000 film workers, including leading Hollywood and international figures, have also announced their refusal to work with complicit Israeli film companies and institutions.
Yet Berlinale has so far not even met the demands of its community to issue a statement that affirms the Palestinian right to life, dignity, and freedom; condemns the ongoing Israeli genocide of Palestinians; and commits to uphold the right of artists to speak without constraint in support of Palestinian human rights. This is the least it can – and should – do.
As the Palestine Film Institute has said, “we are appalled by Berlinale’s institutional silence on the genocide of Palestinians, and its unwillingness to defend the freedoms of speech and expression of filmmakers”. Just as the festival has made clear statements in the past about atrocities carried out against people in Iran and Ukraine, we call on the Berlinale to fulfil its moral duty and clearly state its opposition to Israel’s genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes against Palestinians, and completely end its involvement in shielding Israel from criticism and calls for accountability.
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