Some of you do not know that currently there is a huge debate around the Toronto international film festival , more than 1000 film makers and actors from around the world have decided to boycott the festival this year objecting to the Toronto International Film Festival's celebratory spotlight on Tel Aviv. Those film makers and actors signed a declaration which I believe the Arab and Egyptian film makers and actors should sign too 
More than 1000 film makers and actors from around the world I repeat including very big names like : Jane Fonda , Julie Christie, Viggo Mortensen , Harry Belafonte and Danny Glover . Noam Chomsky also signed the declaration. Jane and other actors are under huge terrible fire , imagine 1000 film makers from around the globe supporting a declaration saying the following :
September 2, 2009
As members of the Canadian and international film, culture and media arts communities, we are deeply disturbed by the Toronto International Film Festival’s decision to host a celebratory spotlight on Tel Aviv. We protest that TIFF, whether intentionally or not, has become complicit in the Israeli propaganda machine.
In 2008, the Israeli government and Canadian partners Sidney Greenberg of Astral Media, David Asper of Canwest Global Communications and Joel Reitman of MIJO Corporation launched “Brand Israel,” a million dollar media and advertising campaign aimed at changing Canadian perceptions of Israel. Brand Israel would take the focus off Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and its aggressive wars, and refocus it on achievements in medicine, science and culture. An article in Canadian Jewish News quotes Israeli consul general Amir Gissin as saying that Toronto would be the test city for a promotion that could then be deployed around the world. According to Gissin, the culmination of the campaign would be a major Israeli presence at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival. (Andy Levy-Alzenkopf, “Brand Israel set to launch in GTA,” Canadian Jewish News, August 28, 2008.)
In 2009, TIFF announced that it would inaugurate its new City to City program with a focus on Tel Aviv. According to program notes by Festival co-director and City to City programmer Cameron Bailey, “The ten films in this year’s City to City programme will showcase the complex currents running through today’s Tel Aviv. Celebrating its 100th birthday in 2009, Tel Aviv is a young, dynamic city that, like Toronto, celebrates its diversity.”
The emphasis on 'diversity' in City to City is empty given the absence of Palestinian filmmakers in the program. Furthermore, what this description does not say is that Tel Aviv is built on destroyed Palestinian villages, and that the city of Jaffa, Palestine’s main cultural hub until 1948, was annexed to Tel Aviv after the mass exiling of the Palestinian population. This program ignores the suffering of thousands of former residents and descendants of the Tel Aviv/Jaffa area who currently live in refugee camps in the Occupied Territories or who have been dispersed to other countries, including Canada. Looking at modern, sophisticated Tel Aviv without also considering the city’s past and the realities of Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza strip, would be like rhapsodizing about the beauty and elegant lifestyles in white-only Cape Town or Johannesburg during apartheid without acknowledging the corresponding black townships of Khayelitsha and Soweto.
We do not protest the individual Israeli filmmakers included in City to City, nor do we in any way suggest that Israeli films should be unwelcome at TIFF. However, especially in the wake of this year’s brutal assault on Gaza, we object to the use of such an important international festival in staging a propaganda campaign on behalf of what South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, and UN General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann have all characterized as an apartheid regime.
4 Egyptian film makers are boycotting the festival including Youssry Nasrallah whose latest starring Mona Zaki had a good chance to be screened in that festival, I am so happy to read his name to be honest. Of course 4 names are not enough , we have other names from film makers and actors that should not be afraid or ashamed of signing such declaration.
I believe we should thank those actors for that brave stand , they are already huge fire you can’t believe it in the right wing media in the West. I think those actors and film makers should be honored in our film festivals like Cairo film festival, Dubai film festival and Damascus film festival
By the way there will be special celebration of Solidarity with the Palestinian rights tomorrow Rogers Communications Centre, Ryerson University in Toronto where some of the names behind this declaration will discuss why they signed and they are standing behind it till the end. You can find more information here if you are in Toronto and interested.
In the end I thank Gaza Jane and Aragon for standing like that , it is the least thing I can do especially that we are waiting for a King to return and unite us in the Middle East !!
I don´t believe so much in boycotts. the festival could be used as a stage for inofficial views & voices from Palestine and Israel. culture is communication. even if the official program would try to broadcast the official view.
ReplyDelete@Rick ,this year's celebration comes after the war of Gaza , the festival was not going to be a stage for views and voices from Palestine and Israel as Culture is a means of communication
ReplyDeleteThis was not going to happen.