Berlin | AFP
The Berlin Festival was accused this Sunday (25) of having served as a platform for several filmmakers who, the day before, had made statements about the Israeli war against Hamas in Gaza, which the mayor of the German capital considered “antiSemitic”.
“AntiSemitism has no place in Berlin and that also applies to artists,” denounced the mayor of the German capital, Kai Wegner, on Platform X.
“What happened yesterday at the Berlinale meant an unbearable relativization,” he added, demanding that the exhibition management take responsibility.
The mayor particularly referred to the opinions expressed during the film festival's awards ceremony on Saturday evening by filmmakers who accused Israel of “genocide” over its bombings in the Gaza Strip, which killed almost 30,000 people, especially civilians, to the Ministry of Health Hamas, which is in power in Gaza.
On the contrary, these directors failed to mention that the Israeli offensive was provoked by an attack by Hamas militants in southern Israel on October 7 that killed at least 1,160 people, most of them civilians.
One of them was American film director Ben Russell, who wore a Palestinian scarf and accused Israel of genocide.
The Palestinian documentary filmmaker Basel Adra, who won an award for a film about the expulsion of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, accused Israel of “massacres” of the Palestinian population and criticized Germany’s arms sales to Israel.
His statements were applauded by the audience in the hall.
The chairman of Prime Minister Olaf Scholz's Social Democratic Party, Helge Lindh, described the public's applause as “shocking”.
“I am ashamed to see people in my country welcoming allegations of genocide against Israel today,” he told Die Welt newspaper.
The Berlin Festival is financed primarily by the German state.
So far, the festival management has not officially responded to the controversy, but told the newspaper Die Welt that the filmmakers' statements during the ceremony were “individual and independent opinions” about the event.
The Berlinale is “explicitly against discrimination and any form of hate,” but believes it is important that there is “freedom of expression” “within the law,” the festival emphasized.