Israeli industry figures from major institutions, including DocAviv Festival, the CoPro market and public broadcaster Kan, have all been turned down from attending the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, one of the world’s leading documentary festivals.
IDFA, which is under the new leadership of Isabel Arrate Fernandez, has endorsed the Israeli film industry boycott, which was prompted last month by the organization Film Workers for Palestine and signed by nearly 4,000 entertainment industry names. This included Hollywood stars like Emma Stone and Joaquin Phoenix, who pledged that they would refuse to work with Israeli film institutions “complicit in war crimes” in Gaza.
As such, IDFA declined to deliver an accreditation to the representatives of DocAviv, as well as CoPro and Kan, because they receive some funding from the Israeli state budget.
Speaking to Variety, Michal Weits, a critically acclaimed documentary director and producer who took the helm of DocAviv last year, says she and her counterparts at Kan and CoPro each “received a refusal letter from IDFA.” Weits added that “the letter said that they are not going to provide us accreditation since we are complicit with the genocide, which is obviously not true.”
Weits insists that DocAviv is an independent documentary film festival. “Even if 25% out of our budget is coming from the public funds, we are screening films that are very critical of the government, as well as stand against the war and against the occupation, because we’re aiming to build bridges between Palestinians and Israelis,” argues Weits, who previously directed the 2021 documentary “Blue Box,” which charted how the Jewish National Fund acquired land in Palestine before and after the creation of the State of Israel.
The government does not dictate programming at DocAviv, Weits says, and the festival “has always resisted political pressure.” As she points out, “We’re not yet a dictatorship. We’re still democratic country, not like Russia, so we can have an independent film festival even if we receive public funds.”
Weits, whose home was destroyed by a missile during the Israel-Iran War on June 22, says she was offered a personal accreditation by IDFA but refused it because she doesn’t want to set a precedent and feels strongly that the boycott is unfair.
Contacted by Variety, Arrate Fernandez addressed the boycott and said: “For this year, organizations from Israel that receive government support were not granted accreditation, though this decision will be reviewed next year.”
She said the IDFA assesses “independent films and filmmakers individually and on a case-by-case basis” and “this also applies to request from institutions,” adding: “If a project has demonstrable ties to governments responsible for serious human rights violations — for instance, through direct state funding — it is generally not selected.”
The IDFA boss explained this guideline previously “led IDFA to refuse certain films from Iran and, since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, from Russia, as well as other countries.”
“Exceptions have been made as well, including two Israeli films last year that received state funding but were selected because of their critical subject matter,” she said, adding that “official government delegations or state-affiliated institutions from such countries are not granted accreditation, although individual film professionals remain eligible.”
Weits says that over the years, DocAviv has screened many critical, left-wing documentaries that have sparked the fury of “the minister of culture, who said that we betrayed the country,” citing “Advocate,” a 2019 documentary about Lea Tsemel, an Israeli human-rights lawyer representing Palestinian terrorists. Another example of a documentary that ruffled feathers is Net Shashani’s “1948: Remember, Remember Not” which shed light on events surrounding the conquest of the Palestinian village in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
Last month at Israel’s Ophir Awards — the country’s equivalent to the Oscars — the best film nod was given to “The Sea,” an Arabic-language drama about a Palestinian boy from the West Bank who risks his life to go to the beach in Tel Aviv. Voted on by the Israeli Academy of Film and Television, which brings together nearly 1,100 filmmakers, producers and actors, “The Sea” automatically qualified to represent Israel in the Oscars’ international feature race. The political gesture didn’t mesh well with the Israeli culture and sports minister Miki Zohar, who immediately vowed to cut funding for the Israeli Film Academy’s Ophir Awards.
During her first year at the helm of DocAviv, Weits says her “dream is to screen films that tell what’s happening in Gaza, what’s happening in the West Bank, in Iran and Lebanon.”
“I want the Israeli audience audience to see people from the other side of the fence,” she continues, “but nobody will give me those films because I’m an Israeli.” Since the boycott, Weits says she has seen resources plummet for international co-production opportunities. “Everybody is afraid to cooperate with Israel, so it’s become much harder to create co-productions and to work with partners outside of Israel.”
Adds Weits: “Culture and films are the only way to communicate with each other. But the boycott wants us to be isolated and disappear, and yet I think our voice is important.”
