Arundhati Roy has withdrawn from the Berlin International Film Festival as she was 'shocked and disgusted' by the comments of jury members regarding their stance on Gaza.
Key Points
- Arundhati Roy withdraws from the prestigious Berlin Film Festival.
- The celebrated author refused to be a part of the festival, given the jury's views that 'art must stay out of politics', referring to the Gaza war.
- Roy's 1989 film In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones is to be screened in the Classics section.
How the controversy began
The Week magazine quotes jury President Wim Wenders as saying, when asked about his views on the German government's position on Gaza, 'We have to stay out of politics because if we made movies that are dedicatedly political, we enter the field of politics, but we are the counterweight to politics. We have to do the work of people and not the work of politicians.'
Another jury member, Polish film producer Ewa Puszczynska, felt it was 'not fair' to ask the judges to comment on government positions regarding the Gaza war.
Arundhati Roy's response
Roy, who won the 1997 Booker Prize for her novel The God Of Small Things, withdrew from the festival, and explained her views in a column in The Wire.
'Although I have been profoundly disturbed by the positions taken by the German government and various German cultural institutions on Palestine, I have always received political solidarity when I have spoken to German audiences about my views on the genocide in Gaza. This is what made it possible for me to think of attending the screening of Annie at the Berlinale,' Roy wrote.
'This morning, like millions of people across the world, I heard the unconscionable statements made by members of the jury of the Berlin film festival when they were asked to comment about the genocide in Gaza. To hear them say that art should not be political is jaw-dropping.
'It is a way of shutting down a conversation about a crime against humanity even as it unfolds before us in real time -- when artists, writers and film makers should be doing everything in their power to stop it.
'Let me say this clearly: What has happened in Gaza, what continues to happen, is a genocide of the Palestinian people by the State of Israel. It is supported and funded by the governments of the United States and Germany, as well as several other countries in Europe, which makes them complicit in the crime.
'If the greatest film makers and artists of our time cannot stand up and say so, they should know that history will judge them. I am shocked and disgusted.'
The Gaza war
The devastation in the Gaza war has been catastrophic. Years of bombardment and fighting have left much of the densely populated territory in ruins, with tens of thousands of Palestinians killed and many more injured. Children and women make up for a vast majority of casualties.
Entire neighbourhoods, homes, hospitals, schools and water systems are destroyed or severely damaged, and essential services like healthcare, clean water, electricity and sanitation have collapsed. Millions face displacement, chronic hunger, unsafe water and long-term destruction of infrastructure.
The Berlin Film Festival
The 76th Berlinale started on February 12, and will end on February 22.
Some of the movie premieres at the festival include At The Sea, starring Amy Adams, Queen at Sea, starring Juliette Binoche, Tom Courtenay and Florence Hunt; and Rosebush Pruning, with Callum Turner and Riley Keough.
India features at the festival with Rima Das' Not a Hero, R Gowtham's Members of the Problematic Family, Madhusree Dutta's Flying Tigers, Amay Mehrishi's Abracadabra, and Utkarsh's A Circle as the Center of the Whole.
A restored version of Arundhati Roy and her then husband Pradip Krishen's 1989 film In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones is to be screened in the Classics section.
The film stars a very young Shah Rukh Khan and Manoj Bajpayee as part of the cast. Read more about the film here.
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