Tuesday, October 28, 2025
Elder of Ziyon
In 2023, Palestinian filmmakers and others boycotted the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam after the IDFA issued a statement saying it did not agree with the slogan "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" which was unfurled by demonstrators interrupting the opening night ceremony. In response, the IDFA said that they were against all forms of censorship:
IDFA is about giving the stage to outstanding artists to be critical and free. IDFA is an open platform and not a censor. Our aim is to make sure everybody feels welcome and safe to express themselves and to listen openly to others, even when in disagreement. Our hope is that everybody feels entitled to use this platform, seriously and responsibly, lovingly and sincerely.
My, how things change.
Israeli industry figures from major institutions, including DocAviv Festival, the CoPro market and public broadcaster Kan, have all been turned down from attending the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, one of the world’s leading documentary festivals.IDFA, which is under the new leadership of Isabel Arrate Fernandez, has endorsed the Israeli film industry boycott, which was prompted last month by the organization Film Workers for Palestine and signed by nearly 4,000 entertainment industry names.
A telling detail from the head of the IDFA, Arrate Fernandez:
She said the IDFA assesses “independent films and filmmakers individually and on a case-by-case basis” and “this also applies to request from institutions,” adding: “If a project has demonstrable ties to governments responsible for serious human rights violations — for instance, through direct state funding — it is generally not selected.”
“Exceptions have been made as well, including two Israeli films last year that received state funding but were selected because of their critical subject matter,” she said.
So, one year after the 2023 defense of free speech and against censorship, the IDFA decided that their rules against human rights violating state-funded films can be bent if the documentary aligns with an anti-Israel stance. (One of the films shown last year claimed that building in Jerusalem with Jerusalem stone is colonialism, and the other was about the 1956 Kafr Qasim massacre that Israel has apologized for multiple times.)
The idea that the IDFA's "principles" can be bent because the films are "critical" perverts the entire idea of documentary filmmaking - the IDFA is saying that it will only consider films that align with one political viewpoint.
I think that is called "censorship," and the head of a prestigious film festival just admitted that this was their guiding principle last year.
This year, however, there is full censorship of Israeli films, even those that are highly critical of Israel. No exceptions.
Their principles evolved from "no censorship" to "censorship of films we don't approve of" to "censorship of entire countries that we decide we don't like."
But notice how each of the contradictory positions are all principled!
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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022) |
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