Film­mak­ers with­draw their work from IDFA amid response to Pales­tine conflict

The Inter­na­tion­al Doc­u­men­tary Fes­ti­val Ams­ter­dam (IDFA) is one of the largest events of its kind, bring­ing togeth­er film­mak­ers, indus­try experts, jour­nal­ists and film lovers from around the world to cel­e­brate and reflect on the art of doc­u­men­tary film­mak­ing. As an art form suit­ed to polit­i­cal dis­cus­sion, protest and dis­sent, it stands to rea­son that IDFA would wel­come film­mak­ers chal­leng­ing injus­tice and the lim­i­ta­tion of freedom.

How­ev­er, this year’s edi­tion takes place dur­ing the ongo­ing con­flict in Pales­tine, and on 8 Novem­ber, at the open­ing night screen­ing, pro­test­ers car­ry­ing a ban­ner with the pop­u­lar slo­gan ​‘From the riv­er to the sea, Pales­tine will be free’ took to the stage. The phrase has been inter­pret­ed as anti-Semit­ic by some mem­bers of the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty, and an open let­ter was issued by key fig­ures of the Israeli film com­mu­ni­ty con­demn­ing IDFA, par­tic­u­lar­ly the festival’s artis­tic direc­tor Orwa Nyra­bia, for applaud­ing the protesters.

IDFA was quick to issue a response on 10 Novem­ber, in which they thanked the ​“Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty in Ams­ter­dam and inter­na­tion­al­ly, from Israel, from Pales­tine, and many oth­er places, for reach­ing out.” In the state­ment, Nyra­bia explains that, ​“The slo­gan writ­ten on the ban­ner held by the young pro­test­ers, which lat­er was report­ed as very vis­i­ble to the audi­ence but not to me on stage, is a trig­ger­ing state­ment and an offen­sive dec­la­ra­tion for many, regard­less of who car­ries it. It does not rep­re­sent IDFA, and was and will not be endorsed. I apol­o­gize for not pay­ing atten­tion to the ban­ner in the moment. I clapped to wel­come free­dom of speech, and not to wel­come the slo­gan.” Last month, the Dutch Court of Appeal ruled that ​‘From the riv­er to the sea’ is pro­tect­ed speech and not anti-Semit­ic, which seems at odds with IDFA’s com­ments. Lat­er on 10 Novem­ber, IDFA issued a sep­a­rate state­ment call­ing for a ceasefire.

In return, the Pales­tin­ian Film Insti­tute issued a state­ment on 11 Novem­ber con­demn­ing IDFA’s actions and with­drew their activ­i­ties and films from the fes­ti­val, includ­ing three projects in the mar­ket by Pales­tin­ian film­mak­ers Yousef Ham­mad and Noo­ra Said (Sheikh Jar­rah), Dalia Al Kury (We Nev­er Left), Hazem Alqad­di and Elet­tra Bisog­no (The Roller. The Life. The Fight). ​“As the world’s largest doc­u­men­tary film fes­ti­val, IDFA holds the respon­si­bil­i­ty to respond to the plight of jour­nal­ists and doc­u­men­tar­i­ans on the ground in Gaza, the Pales­tin­ian film com­mu­ni­ty, and Pales­tin­ian lives. Con­trary to its stat­ed goal of pro­mot­ing films that inspire crit­i­cal think­ing and soci­etal bet­ter­ment, IDFA‘s actions fall short,” the PFI’s state­ment read.

At the same time, film­mak­ers began with­draw­ing their films from the fes­ti­val in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Pales­tine. Fil­ipino film­mak­er Miko Revereza, who had ini­tial­ly called on IDFA to denounce the bom­bard­ment of Gaza on 9 Novem­ber, with­drew his doc­u­men­tary Nowhere Near on 11 Novem­ber. He was swift­ly fol­lowed by Bas­ma al-Sharif (a Pales­tin­ian film­mak­er with four shorts select­ed to play, who also resigned from the Envi­sion jury), Jumana Man­na (a Pales­tin­ian film­mak­er screen­ing her short Blessed Blessed Obliv­ion), Maryam Tafako­ry (Mast-del), Char­lie Shack­le­ton (Lat­er­al), Ter­ra Long (Feet in Water, Head on Fire), Kaori Oda (Gama), Joshua Gen Solondz (We Don’t Talk Like We Used To), Nika Autor (News­reel 242 – Sun­ny Rail­ways), Niles Atal­lah, Dr Nari­man Mas­sou­mi (Pour­ing Water on Trou­bled Oil), Sis­ter Sylvester and Deniz Tor­tum (Shad­ow­land) and Sky Hopin­ka (małni – towards the ocean, towards the shore). 

Dur­ing a con­ver­sa­tion event with Man­na, Hopin­ka read al-Sharif’s pub­lic state­ment aloud to the audi­ence includ­ing the fes­ti­val direc­tor. On 13 Novem­ber, in his own with­draw­al state­ment, Hopin­ka also expressed his sup­port for Nyra­bi, writ­ing, ​“He’s in an impos­si­ble posi­tion as the direc­tor of the fes­ti­val, as an Arab, as a Syr­i­an, and as a friend to so many of us.” 

Oth­ers chose to use their plat­form at the fes­ti­val to high­light the sit­u­a­tion in Gaza, such as Mohammed Almu­gan­ni dur­ing his pitch for Son of the Streets, and the Peru­vian XR team con­sist­ing of Claudix Vane­six, Juan Pablo Tan­ta­Vil­ca and Lore­na Gar­cia pulled their work fol­low­ing a live state­ment. Pales­tin­ian film­mak­er Mohamed Jabaly is con­tin­u­ing to screen his film Life is Beau­ti­ful – quot­ed in the Guardian, he explained ​“I want to be heard, because now that every­thing has been destroyed, what is left are our sto­ries and free­dom of expression.”

Speak­ing to The Hol­ly­wood Reporter on 14 Novem­ber, Nyra­bia said: ​“We respect the choic­es and the deci­sions of all film­mak­ers, whether that is to speak their minds on stage or online or to with­draw their films, all forms of peace­ful protest, includ­ing crit­i­cism of our work, we hon­or and respect.”

In a state­ment post­ed to Insta­gram, Man­na point­ed out that IDFA’s ini­tial state­ment goes against the Dutch court’s rul­ing, and ​“sets a prece­dent where­by bad-faith accu­sa­tions are giv­en lever­age rather than dis­man­tled,” adding, ​“This is dan­ger­ous par­tic­u­lar­ly when it hap­pens in a pres­ti­gious doc­u­men­tary film fes­ti­val that should set a stan­dard of crit­i­cal think­ing and jour­nal­is­tic truth. Over 40 jour­nal­ists have been killed in Gaza this past month. If IDFA did not have the court to make a clear state­ment against this sys­tem­at­ic tar­get­ing of Pales­tin­ian voic­es, call for the end of the geno­ci­dal onslaught and the end of apartheid, the least it could have done is pro­tect a slo­gan for equal­i­ty and free­dom from demonization.”

“‘From the Riv­er to the Sea’” is an expres­sion of lib­er­a­tion and resis­tance by Pales­tin­ian free­dom fight­ers,” said Tafako­ry in her state­ment. ​“To call this slo­gan ​‘hurt­ful’ is to be against the end of occu­pa­tion. To equate decol­o­niza­tion with ter­ror­ism is to main­tain the colo­nial narrative.”

On 12 Novem­ber, IDFA respond­ed to grow­ing crit­i­cism with a third state­ment: ​“IDFA is about giv­ing the stage to out­stand­ing artists to be crit­i­cal and free. IDFA is an open plat­form and not a cen­sor. Our aim is to make sure every­body feels wel­come and safe to express them­selves and to lis­ten open­ly to oth­ers, even when in dis­agree­ment.” This response was wel­comed by the Pales­tin­ian Film Insti­tute – as report­ed by Screen Inter­na­tion­al, the PFI’s pub­lic pro­gramme cura­tor Mohanad Yaqubi urged film­mak­ers still attend­ing the fes­ti­val to use it ​“as a way to speak up and use their plat­forms to talk about the con­tin­u­ous atroc­i­ties in Gaza.”

How­ev­er, the sit­u­a­tion has severe­ly dam­aged the trust between some film­mak­ers and IDFA. In a press state­ment shared with LWLies, Bas­ma al-Sharif wrote: ​“As a Pales­tin­ian and a film­mak­er, I am shak­en and ter­ri­fied by the prece­dent set by IDFA that when con­front­ed with real world pol­i­tics with­in its frame­work, they have cho­sen to throw its most vul­ner­a­ble under the bus at the first sign of trou­ble. If one of Europe’s biggest and most impor­tant doc­u­men­tary fes­ti­vals can­not be trust­ed to pro­tect the space for rig­or­ous, impor­tant and nec­es­sary dia­logue, then the fes­ti­val is in cri­sis and the plat­form to share our work has been devalued.”

Read­ers are able to watch and sup­port the work of Pales­tin­ian film­mak­ers and jour­nal­ists who often put them­selves in harm’s way in order to speak out against the per­se­cu­tion they face. Girls in Film, Roxy Fari­dany, Alan­nah Olivia and Amir El Mas­ry held a film screen­ing fundrais­er on 8 Novem­ber in sup­port of Med­ical Aid Pales­tine, and The Lon­don Pales­tine Film Fes­ti­val returns this week, run­ning from Novem­ber 17 to Decem­ber 1. The Arab Film & Media Insti­tute has also made a selec­tion of Pales­tin­ian films avail­able glob­al­ly to watch for free dur­ing November.

IDFA has not yet respond­ed to LWLies’ request for com­ment about the films with­drawn from the fes­ti­val – we will update this arti­cle when they do.