6 days ago
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A polarised debate about Gaza in Germany is leading some artists to shun one of the world’s top film festivals, its new director has said.
Tricia Tuttle, the head of the Berlin international film festival, said a perception that Germany had been overzealous in its policing of speech about the Middle East conflict, and controversy over this year’s awards ceremony, were having an impact as she planned her first edition.
“I’m worried about it because I hear it so often from artists outside this country, it’s a real thing. I can’t pretend like it’s not happening,” Tuttle said, referring to fears that criticism of Israel’s war in Gaza would be condemned in Germany as antisemitism.
The Berlinale, as the event is called, is preparing for its 75th edition, running from 13-23 February, with the US director Todd Haynes as jury president. With its roots in cold war cultural outreach for West Berlin, it is known as the most politically minded of Europe’s big three festivals, alongside Cannes and Venice, while still serving up high-wattage Hollywood glamour.
In an interview in her office on Berlin’s Potsdamer Platz, where the annual festival takes place, Tuttle said some film-makers, whom she preferred not to name, had questioned how free they would be to express themselves on screen and off about one of the most fraught contemporary conflicts.
“People are worried about: ‘Does it mean I won’t be allowed to speak? Does it mean that I won’t be able to allowed to express empathy or sympathy for the victims in Gaza? Does it mean that I, if I say this, then I also have to say this at the same time?’
“People are really uncertain about it. And I’ve talked to artists who are questioning whether they want to come,” said Tuttle, 54, who previously ran the BFI London film festival.
At this year’s prize ceremony, several winners and judges used their turn on stage to call for a ceasefire in Gaza and condemn Israel’s war there. The most strident remarks, which referred to “apartheid”, led German politicians to denounce the festival for providing a platform for hate speech.
The team behind the Palestinian film No Other Land, which won best documentary, was particularly outspoken.
The Israeli journalist and director Yuval Abraham, who features in the film alongside the Palestinian activist and director Basel Adra, later said German officials’ description of the awards ceremony as “antisemitic” had led to death threats against Israeli family members. Some German Jewish representatives expressed shock about the film-makers’ failure to mention the 7 October Hamas attacks in their remarks about Israel.
Several prominent artists who have criticised Israel have found themselves excluded from exhibitions or had prizes rescinded in Germany over the last year, while the German parliament last month passed a controversial resolution on the protection of Jewish life that opponents say equates criticism of Israel’s human rights record with antisemitism.
“It’s been a really hard year for the discourse around the festival,” admitted Tuttle, who was appointed about six weeks after the 7 October atrocities. “This has dominated a lot of time.”
Tuttle said she and her team were working to reassure directors and actors that “we are the Berlinale that they’ve always known and loved – that’s pluralistic and embraces many, many different perspectives”.
When No Other Land was released in global cinemas last month, Tuttle posted a full-throated defence of the film and its makers.
“(D)iscourse which suggests this film or its film-makers are antisemitic creates danger for all of them, inside and outside of Germany, and it is important that we stand together and support them,” she wrote.
While Tuttle has managed to reassure many directors and stars that they can express themselves freely in Berlin, she is most worried about those who are turning away without speaking to her.
“Friends came back from the Red Sea film festival, from the Marrakech film festival, and reported back to me that there was a general sense of concern,” she said.
Tuttle, who is American but moved to the UK in the 1990s, said she recognised she had a “learning curve” in taking the reins at one of Germany’s most venerable cultural institutions.
“When I first came here, I definitely didn’t understand just how much Holocaust remembrance culture is so core to the German psyche,” she said, a factor cited in Germany’s sense of responsibility for Israel’s security.
“It’s important for me to have empathy and try to understand that.”
Tuttle added, however, that within Jewish and Israeli communities there was a “range of perspectives on these issues”, many of them critical of the Israeli government. These were in addition to those held by “film-makers from around the world, from Arab countries who are also affected by the things that have been happening in the last year in the Middle East”.
She said she saw one of her many roles at the festival as helping guide artists through Germany’s particular sensitivities and “reminding people that we’re going to hear all different kinds of perspectives, and setting a framework that embraces that and welcomes it”.
English (US) ·