A coali­tion of LGBTQ+ film­mak­ers are boy­cotting an Israeli film festival

The rights of the LGBTQ+ com­mu­ni­ty have always been a top­ic of great con­tro­ver­sy in the Mid­dle East, where grass­roots motions towards pro­gres­sivism often bump up against repres­sive regimes. Observers can find a small, self-con­tained case study on the sub­ject in Tel Aviv right now, where a film fes­ti­val has turned into a polit­i­cal flash­point with glob­al implications.

This com­ing June, Tel Aviv will once again host TLVFest, a gov­ern­ment-sanc­tioned film fes­ti­val with a focus on LGBTQ+ cin­e­ma. Today, how­ev­er, The Hol­ly­wood Reporter reports that a cam­paign has been launched to boy­cott the fes­tiv­i­ties, spear­head­ed by an inter­na­tion­al coali­tion of artists in response to the Israeli government’s treat­ment of Palestine’s LGBTQ+ community.

Num­ber­ing more than 130 and count­ing among their ranks Stranger by the Lake direc­tor Alain Guiraudie, this effort has been organ­ised by queer activist groups from inside Pales­tine, as well as the Boy­cott Divest­ment Sanc­tions move­ment, a wide­spread mis­sion to spur reform in Israel by sev­er­ing ties on a world­wide scale.

TLVFest has been in oper­a­tion for 15 years, dur­ing which time many of the sig­na­to­ries have pur­port­ed­ly made efforts to reach out and work togeth­er with the coor­di­na­tors. But the festival’s direct link to the Israeli Min­istry of Cul­ture has made this impos­si­ble due to the oppo­si­tion to ​“pinkwash­ing” efforts by which the cause of queer rights can be used to, ​“project a pro­gres­sive image while deny­ing the rights of all Pales­tini­ans, queer and non-queer alike.”

This will be far from the final chap­ter in the ongo­ing saga of fric­tion between Israel and the rest of the world in the cul­tur­al sphere. As THR notes, both Lorde and Lana Del Rey made the deci­sion to exclude the area from their con­cert tours, and vocal­ly prin­ci­pled direc­tor Ken Loach has long since announced that he won’t appear at any Israeli-spon­sored festival.

Whether an insti­tu­tion would take up this cause – a Cannes, per­haps, bar­ring Israeli sub­mis­sions pro­duced in coop­er­a­tion with the gov­ern­ment? – is anoth­er con­ver­sa­tion entirely.