Indian author Arundhati Roy has slammed the organisers of this year’s Berlin Film Festival and withdrawn from the event in the wake of jury president Wim Wenders’s comments about the ongoing conflict and humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Arundhati Roy withdraws from Berlin Film Festival
The author said she was “shocked and disgusted” by the responses from Wenders and other jury members to a question about Gaza and Israel at a press conference on Thursday. At the conference, Wenders had said cinema should “stay out of politics” when asked about Gaza.
Arundhati Roy, winner of the Booker Prize in 1997, had been announced as a guest at the festival to present a restored version of her 1989 film In Which Annie Gives It Those One, which marked Shah Rukh Khan’s film debut. However, she has now withdrawn from the program
In a statement sent to news agency AFP, Arundhati said that the “unconscionable” statements by Wenders and other jury members had led her to reconsider, “with deep regret”.
In her statement, the author said that “to hear them say that art should not be political is jaw-dropping.” She described Israel’s actions in Gaza as “a genocide of the Palestinian people by the State of Israel.”
“If the greatest filmmakers and artists of our time cannot stand up and say so, they should know that history will judge them,” she added.
The Berlin Film Festival said that they respected Arundhati Roy’s decision. “The Berlinale respects these decisions. We regret that we will not welcome them as their presence would have enriched the festival discourse,” a spokesperson said in a statement to AFP.
What Berlinale jury had said on Gaza
On Thursday, during a press conference, the jury president Wim Wenders was asked about Germany’s support for Israel, to which he responded, “We cannot really enter the field of politics”, describing filmmakers as “the counterweight to politics”. Fellow jury member Ewa Puszczynska called it ‘unfair’ to expect the jury to take a stance on the issue.
The Berlinale traditionally has a reputation for topical, progressive programming, but so far this year’s edition has seen several stars shy away from taking a stance on the big political issues of the day.
The war in Gaza was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliation has left at least 71,000 people dead in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, whose figures the UN considers reliable.
(With AFP inputs)
