As a screenwriter and director, member of the Motion Picture Academy and former member of the Board of Directors of the Writers Guild of America, I would like to register my firm protest and disgust with the organizers of the Edinburgh film festival for urging Israeli director Yoav Shamir not to attend the screening of his film at the festival. I ask other members of the film community to join me in condemning this cowardly restriction on artistic freedom.
PJ Media appreciates your comments that abide by the following guidelines:
1. Avoid profanities or foul language unless it is contained in a necessary quote or is relevant to the comment.
2. Stay on topic.
3. Disagree, but avoid ad hominem attacks.
4. Threats are treated seriously and reported to law enforcement.
5. Spam and advertising are not permitted in the comments area.
These guidelines are very general and cannot cover every possible situation. Please don't assume that PJ Media management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment. We reserve the right to filter or delete comments or to deny posting privileges entirely at our discretion. Please note that comments are reviewed by the editorial staff and may not be posted immediately. If you feel your comment was filtered inappropriately, please email us at story@pjmedia.com.
Roger it does sound like you belong to a weasel organization. Why not find out who signed the letter and out them. In the mean time Yoav Shamir should get his film crew together for the Edinburgh film festival and get a script going for his new picture called the Lynching of a Jew. Get a sound crew out there asking questions like, what do you think of the head choppers and rock throwers trying to kill Mr. Shamir? You could have a lot of fun with this particularly because of the venue. Lights are getting dim in Europe again, who would have thougt the Nazi would finally get to England 60 years after Hitler blew his brain out.
The situation is much worse even than that, as my favourite UK journalist, Stephen Pollard, observed the other day:
EIFF says Jewish money is tainted money
Here’s a worrying sign of things to come, from the Edinburgh International Film Festival, which has returned sponsorship of an Israeli film for no other reason than that the money comes from Israel – indeed, despite the film in question lambasting the Israeli government:
“The money provided by the Israeli Embassy comes from their Department of Culture. It is simply to facilitate cultural exchange – in this case, the visit of a filmmaker whose view of his own country, happens to be nuanced, non-partisan and documentary.
The funding is, in this sense, no different from the travel bursaries provided by Unifrance, for French filmmakers, or the Goethe Institute, for German ones. It is not in the strict sense “sponsorship” (we are no more “sponsored” by the government of Israel, than we are “sponsored” by the French, the Germans, et al), though I understand that it may appear as such to outsiders.
However, this funding was secured some three months ago, well before the commencement of current hostilities in Lebanon. Of course we acknowledge that the situation has altered dramatically since then, and with this in mind, took the decision early yesterday to decline any funding from the Israelis.
Should the Israeli director choose to attend the festival, then the festival shall pay for his visit out of its own budget. But regardless of whether he attends or not, the film screening will go ahead as planned. Please allow us to explain why:
The film in question, Five Days, is made by one Yoav Shamir – a filmmaker who has been a trenchant critic of his government’s policies. His previous film, Checkpoint, screened at the festival in 2003, and was in fact an explicitly pro-Palestinian work: an observation of various intimidations and harassments suffered by ordinary Palestinian citizens at the hands of Israeli soldiers overseeing border checkpoints.
Indeed, a glance back at the programming of the Edinburgh International Film Festival, over the past decade, reveals that the vast majority of filmmaking from Israel has been from filmmakers opposed to their government’s policies – and many of the films, indeed, have been Israel-Palestine co-productions.
We don’t believe that is in the public interest to ban these films, just because they happen to be from a state with whose official policies one might not agree. Indeed, we do not believe in banning work from any country – particularly work which takes a critical or interrogatory stance on its government. This path leads only to censorship – for who is to say, that if we accede to the notion of Israel as a “rogue state” and refuse henceforth to show any Israeli films, that other such demands will not follow?
The Americans, for example, might declare the nation of Iran beyond the pale, an “axis of evil” (events certainly seem to be heading that way), and demand that we should ban all Iranian cinema. Would they be right? We would argue not. Or, conversely, if we considered America to be an evil imperialist empire, and chose to show no American films, what about a Michael Moore documentary? Or a Noam Chomsky portrait? What of the dissidents, the protesters, the public intellectuals? We would no more prevent a film from Israel from screening here, than we would agree to an Israeli demand to withdraw any Palestinian or Lebanese films from our programme.
The Edinburgh International Film Festival is dedicated at all times to the notion of an exchange of ideas, and to freedom of speech for all filmmakers. While we emphatically do not condone the recent actions of Israel, to reject the opportunity to allow this director to present his work to an audience, also rejects the possibility of dialogue between Israelis and the rest of the world – something the present situation would seem very much to require. No one learns anything from banning films, any more than we might from censoring books; it only cultivates ignorance and prejudice. When, on the contrary, what is needed is enlightenment and education.”
The main argument is all well and good. Which makes it all the more lamentable that Mr Danielsen should see fit to return funding for the film’s screening from the Israeli Embassy because Israeli money is tainted money, because Israel has chosen to defend the right of Jews to live free from terror attacks in Israel.
But then, as this piece argues eloquently, criticism of Israel’s actions seems to based on the the fact that there are too few dead Jews.
I can’t be concerned with things like this, or Ahmadinejad saying the solution to Middle East peace is the elimination of Israel. I’m far too busy worrying about what Mel Gibson said.
ìThe film in question, Five Days, is made by one Yoav Shamir – a filmmaker who has been a trenchant critic of his government’s policies. His previous film, Checkpoint, screened at the festival in 2003, and was in fact an explicitly pro-Palestinian work: an observation of various intimidations and harassments suffered by ordinary Palestinian citizens at the hands of Israeli soldiers overseeing border checkpoints.î
I have not seen Five Days. Nonetheless, it is likely a childishly simplistic film. Israel is compelled to protect its citizens. Yoav Shamir probably focusses too much on the ìharassmentî of ordinary Palestinians—without offering a viable alternative. Gosh, can you imagine what Shamir might think about the grief suffered by the typical American when going through airport security?
“I can’t be concerned with things like this, or Ahmadinejad saying the solution to Middle East peace is the elimination of Israel. I’m far too busy worrying about what Mel Gibson said.”
People like Gibson are the reason there is an Israel in the first place. And whilst Ahmadinejad has only threatened genocide, the aforementioned have already committed it.
I leave you with the wise words of Larry Gelbart: “The reason ABC canceled Mel Gibson’s new version of the Holocaust — in his version, the Jews killed six million Nazis.”
Roger:
The exchange of art and artists is often promoted as a wonderful way to break down political boundries that keep nations at war with each other. And that idea has always prevailed in the film community, even when dealing with authoritarian regimes that heavily censored their artists such as Soviet Russia, Castro’s Cuba, Mao’s China, all the Eastern European countries that were under the boot of the Soviet Union, even arpatheid South Africa. But of course since Israel is populated by Jooooos they must have their own category of film hell and anything from that country must be kept away from the pure eyes and ear of the politically correct film community.Money from homophobic Saudi Arabia or Norht Korea is cool. But not that evil Israeli money. I need to go and vomit.
Roger:
Of course there are 3 films from Iran and they seem to have no problem with that government. The government that imprisons it’s own artists, or if they emigrate and practice their art the government will occasionally issue death warrants for them. And of course this is the very same government that had no problem with the butchering of film makers in Europe because that filmmaker had the nerve to insult Mohammed. That countries money and sponsorship is considered golden and untainted. What moral courage they show by going after Israel and ignoring Iran.
I expect they will feature the sequel to the Hirsi Ali/Theo van Gogh film “Submission” next year. Yup. Not a doubt.
The hometown of 2 famous, bold, Scotch/Brits (A. Doyle mystery writer and T. Blair, PM) seems to have lost its way. I have not see anything from the PM about this. IF the fascists have not won Europe this shows they are well on the way. But as a SoCal resident my own Hollywood has not supported the Sabras for almost 45 years. Maybe it is the folk in the “Arts” that have lost their way?
Whoever said the lights are going out all over Europe is right. We can’t even count on the UK to protect Israel from a UN condemnation. Scott Burgess over at Daily Ablution has a good series going on Islamist infiltration into, of all things, the UK Foreign Office.
It is rapidly feeling like the 1930s. I never believed I would ever see the day.
So, lefty Yoav Shamir gets mugged by reality. It’s an old story, but what was he thinking? Hadn’t he remembered Stalin and the purges? I suppose Shamir will be a good little Jew victim and get on the train, all the time yelling about the Fascism of the IDF, Israel, and slavish America Jews.
Did Trotsky same something about history repeating itself as a farce? Would that the future portend so softly.
I have a vague notion that to me is shaping up between the rational forces, and deep streams of phantasmagoria irrational forces, like Hezzbollah. What does one do with a crazed killer breaking into your house, like in the movie, Straw Dogs? And what do you do with a death worshiping, Jew hating cult like Hezzbollah? I know what I would do. And I would lie, if I lived, to my grandchildren about what I did.
Why the hell would anyone with a backbone want to participate in anything organized by the Scots? Scotland is now the most PC and sissified pseudo nation on earth, existing in a parasitic relationship with England (which itself is hardly an improvement on Scotland).
Of Scottish extraction myself, I can verify that the Scots as a rule are bad tempered, weak at the center and addicted to the vain flummery of their own sappy myths and legends. They wear skirts, after all.