Andrey Plakhov on the politicization of film festivals

The 74th Berlin Film Festival took place in a tense political atmosphere, which manifested itself at all stages of the festival – from beginning to finale. Two deputies from the right-wing radical party AFD (Alternative for Germany) were invited to the opening ceremony, and then, under public pressure, the invitations were withdrawn. The scandal was thus mixed up, but the residue remained.

At the closing ceremony of the festival, the slogan “No AFD” was posted, but almost every second person who took the stage either wore a Palestinian headscarf thrown around his neck (like, for example, the famous American documentarian Ben Russell), or had a piece of paper attached to his clothes calling for an immediate stop fire in Gaza. The victims of the Hamas attack and the Israeli hostages were mentioned only in passing by festival director Mariette Rissenbeck at the very beginning of the ceremony.

The awarding of the prize for best documentary work to the film “No Other Land,” about the destruction of a Palestinian village, turned into a real demonstration condemning Israel’s military strategy as “apartheid” and “genocide.” One of the film’s creators, Palestinian activist Basel Adra, called it a “massacre” to applause from the audience. At night, hackers hacked the channel of the Berlin Panorama (the program in which the film was shown) on social networks and posted pro-Palestinian slogans there, as well as posted photos of destroyed houses in Gaza and signed them “Zone of Interest” – after the name of the famous film about Auschwitz.

The festival issued a statement late last night seeking to distance itself from the winners’ statements, which constitute “independent personal opinions and in no way reflect the position of the festival.” But it was too late: the scandal reached government offices. An investigation has been launched into how such “one-sided”, and to call a spade a spade, anti-Semitic comments could have been uttered. Government speaker Christiane Hoffmann said Chancellor Olaf Scholz considers such a one-sided position unacceptable. And in any discussion on this topic, it must be borne in mind that the trigger for a new escalation of the conflict was the Hamas attack on October 7.

The next day, Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner commented: “What happened yesterday at the Berlinale is unacceptable… There is no place for anti-Semitism in Berlin, and this also applies to artists. The new management of the Berlinale must not allow such incidents to happen again.” These words were addressed to new director Trisha Tuttle, who will begin overseeing the festival next year. However, both the mayor of Berlin and Culture Minister Claudia Roth found themselves in an ambiguous position, since both attended the ceremony and were filmed applauding the unkind statements.

Israeli Ambassador to Germany Ron Prozor sharply criticized the “anti-Semitic rhetoric”. Journalists have already raised the question of whether the scandal, which undermines the official German policy of supporting Israel, will affect the generous state funding of the Berlinale. It seems that not yet, efforts will be aimed at not repeating what happened. It is difficult, however, to imagine that the speeches of the Berlin Festival laureates were censored. Meron Mendel, director of the Anne Frank Educational Center in Frankfurt am Main, spoke about this: “Whether we like it or not, we will have to learn to tolerate such debates.” Probably, the festival curators will be more careful with the selection of films like the Palestinian one, which can more likely be classified as propaganda rather than art.

The Berlinale is not the first or only festival to become entangled in politics. A similar thing happened three months earlier with the IDFA documentary film festival in Amsterdam. There things took an even steeper turn, since the scandal broke out not at the closing, but right at the opening. Activists came onto the stage during the ceremony with a poster “From the river to the sea. Palestine will be free.” IDFA’s artistic director, Syrian-born curator Orwa Nirabia, was taken by surprise and began to applaud. He later explained it this way: “The slogan written on the banner held by the young protesters, which was later reported to be clearly visible to the audience but not to me on stage, is a provocative statement and an offensive declaration… It does not represent the IDFA, nor did it will not be approved. I apologize for not paying attention to the banner. I clapped my hands, welcoming freedom of speech, not a slogan.”

And then the festival organizers began to be torn apart by the pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian lobby. Nirabia found himself between two fires. The IDFA has issued several statements, distancing itself from the extremist slogan and attempting to frame its position on the basis of an ethic of the value of human life. Which means rejection of violence, massacres, collective punishment, oppression, militarization and chauvinism. The statement said that condemning the pro-Palestinian slogan does not mean supporting Israeli policies. Just as “acknowledging the suffering of the Palestinian people today does not mean ignoring the pain of the victims on the Israeli side.” The festival declared its goal to create a safe and open space for civil debate, where a comprehensive view of the world and the human condition can be expressed.

But this approach, of course, did not suit either side. Palestinians and their sympathizers declared Nirabiya’s behavior mercantile and typical of “high-ranking colored employees,” and he himself was “not an enemy, but a mediator in the interests of the enemy.” Twenty directors withdrew their films from the festival in protest. Because, from their point of view, even these films that are statements against genocide are appropriated and turned in their favor by the IDFA; creates the illusion that everyone can speak freely on the festival grounds, while the festival itself remains muzzled and on a short leash. Critic Matthew Curry wrote in Deadline: “The IDFA’s attempt to walk a fine line – publicly acknowledging the trauma experienced by Palestinians and Israelis while trying to avoid offending sentiments with its statements – has proven nearly impossible to achieve.”

Both the documentary IDFA and the traditionally politicized Berlinale are facing new challenges today, and the Middle East conflict is just one of them. This situation is reminiscent of what the festival movement already experienced at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s. But then the intervention of politics ultimately stimulated the development of art. These days, she’s more of a substitute.

Andrey Plakhov