As TIFF passes the halfway mark, people are still taking sides over festival’s City to City Tel Aviv spotlight.
Protesters angry with the festival’s decision to spotlight 10 Israeli films and accusing organizers of taking part in Israeli propaganda, held a press conference and demonstration at Ryerson University on Monday that drew about 250 people, according to the Toronto Star.
The group, which released an online letter and petition last week, includes Canadian activist Naomi Klein and is backed by such celebrities as Viggo Mortensen, Harry Belafonte, Noam Chomsky, Julie Christie, Eve Ensler, Danny Glover, Wallace Shawn and Alice Walker. Jane Fonda signed the letter but later expressed regret and said her decision to do so was rash. Organizers say they have collected more than 1,500 signatures.
Meanwhile, a separate group is speaking out against the protest. This group, which includes Jerry Seinfeld, Natalie Portman, Sacha Baron Cohen and Lisa Kudrow, took out an ad in Tuesday’s Toronto Star explaining their position:
“We applaud the Toronto International Film Festival for including the Israeli film community in the Festival’s City to City program,” said the statement.
“The visiting filmmakers represent a dynamic national cinema, the best of Israel’s open, uncensored, artistic expression.
“Anyone who has actually seen recent Israeli cinema, movies that are political and personal, comic and tragic, often critical, knows they are in no way a propaganda arm for any government policy.
“Blacklisting them only stifles the exchange of cultural knowledge that artists should be the first to defend and protect.”
Prominent entertainment figures supporting the spotlight also include David Cronenberg, Minnie Driver, Norman Jewison, Lenny Kravitz and producer Robert Lantos.
At the protester’s conference, filmmakers including John Greyson, who pulled his film from the festival over the issue, Elle Flanders and Palestinian-Israeli director Elia Sulieman refuted accusations that they had called for a boycott. Flanders said, according to the Star, “We are not protesting the films or the filmmakers, just the frame that TIFF is using.”
“They wanted to party, and we want to spoil their party,” said Yousry Nasrallah, an Egyptian filmmaker whose movie, ‘Scheherazade, Tell Me a Story’ still appears to be screening at the festival.
The Globe and Mail said yesterday, however, that Nasrallah had announced that three Egyptians films, ‘The Traveller’ by Ahmad Abdalla, ‘Heliopolis’ by Ahmed Maher, and one unnamed Arab short had been pulled as part of the protest.
Festival co-director Cameron Bailey had, prior to their withdrawal, reportedly singled out both films for praise along with Nasrallah’s “Scheherazade, Tell me a Story.”
(Photo by PR Photos)