'Genocide in Gaza': Anti-Israel protests, boycott calls at Toronto, Venice film festivals

Protests accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, speeches supporting Palestinians without mentioning Israeli hostages and thousands slaughtered by Hamas, and calls to boycott Israeli movies have been prominent at the two major end-of-summer film festivals: the recently concluded Venice Film Festival, and the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), which runs until September 15.

At the opening of the TIFF, the largest and most important film festival in North America, on Thursday night, protesters calling “Stop the genocide!” disrupted the opening-night gala as the CEO of the film festival, Cameron Bailey, attempted to speak, according to reports. The protesters also called for the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) to stop doing business with Israel. 

Justin Trudeau, Canada’s Prime Minister, was attending the event. After four minutes, security personnel escorted the protesters out. 

Up until a few years ago, Israeli films were featured prominently at the TIFF, but this year, only the festival centerpiece – a prestigious spot – will be from Israel: Shemi Zarhin’s Bliss, starring Sasson Gabay and Assi Levy; the story of a struggling couple in Israel’s north. 

It was recently announced that the latest film produced by acclaimed documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney, The Bibi Files, will be shown at TIFF on September 9 and 10. The documentary, directed by Alexis Bloom, includes what has been billed as footage of police investigations of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ongoing criminal cases that have never been shown before. The recordings were from 2016-2018. 

Filmmakers speak out against Israel

At the awards ceremony of the Venice Film Festival on Saturday night, Sarah Friedland, an American-Jewish director accepting the Luigi De Laurentiis Prize for Best First Film for her movie, Familiar Touch, said, “As a Jewish American artist working in a time-based medium, I must note, I’m accepting this award on the 336th day of Israel’s genocide in Gaza and 76th year of occupation. I believe it is our responsibility as filmmakers to use the institutional platforms through which we work to redress Israel’s impunity on the global stage. I stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine and their struggle for liberation,” in a statement reported by Deadline.com. 

Jaffa-born filmmaker Scandar Copti, who has an engineering degree from the Technion, a publicly funded Israeli university, accepted the best screenplay prize in the Horizons section at the Venice Film Festival for his film, Happy Holidays, which is about several characters in Haifa whose paths cross. In his speech, he said, “I stand here deeply honored, yet profoundly affected by the difficult times we’re living through over the past 11 months, our shared humanity and moral compass have been tested as we witness the ongoing genocide in Gaza…This painful reality reminds us of the devastating consequences of oppression, which is a theme in our film. Our film looks at how moral narratives can bring us together as communities, but also blind us to the suffering of others.”

Copti’s best-known film is the Oscar-nominated Ajami, which he directed with Yaron Shani and which was funded by the Israel Film Fund. It was the first Israeli movie mainly in Arabic nominated for an Oscar as the official selection of Israel, although he declined to promote it after it was nominated, saying it did not represent him.

During the festival, about 300 international filmmakers signed an open letter calling for the Venice Film Festival to boycott two movies by Israeli filmmakers, Of Dogs and Men by Dani Rosenberg, about a girl searching for her dog in Kibbutz Nir Oz after October 7, and Why War by Amos Gitai, about correspondence between Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein on avoiding war. 

The filmmakers who called for the boycott said in their letter: “Of Dogs and Men, shot in the midst of Israel’s ongoing attacks on Gaza, whitewashes the genocide. Like Of Dogs and Men, Why War was created by complicit Israeli production companies that contribute to apartheid, occupation, and now genocide through their silence or active participation in artwashing.”

Gitai denounced their call, saying that his film should be shown and that he has devoted his career to fostering dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians. 

Speaking before a screening of Of Dogs and Men over the weekend, Rosenberg was quoted by Reuters as saying, “I felt very strongly that it was the right time to tell the story. I think it’s our job, as filmmakers, to open a window onto reality in order, perhaps, to allow for a ray of humanity to enter.” 

Referring to those who had called for his movie to be boycotted, he said, “Ultimately, my aspiration is for the war to end and their aspiration is also for the war to end, meaning, in that sense, that we share the same goal. I just don’t agree with their way of promoting it… I don’t think that in the immediate-term cinema can bring about change you know, even [Picasso’s] Guernica in the end, which is maybe the most significant piece of art about the horrors of war, didn’t change the situation in Spain. But I do think that in the long run, it will leave a memory of the terrible reality we were in.”

Of Dogs and Men received a standing ovation at its premiere and garnered positive reviews. Jordan Mintzer wrote in The Hollywood Reporter: “For a conflict in which many people feel obliged to take sides, the director adapts a more humanistic approach, showing how wars can be completely indiscriminate when it comes to the killing of innocents. And he does so in a way that manages to respect the victims instead of exploiting their memories… [The movie] it strives hard to do what the writer George Eliot once said all art should do, which is to extend our sympathies.”

About 25% of Kibbutz Nir Oz’s 380 residents were killed or taken hostage by Hamas on October 7, among them the children Kfir and Ariel Bibas, who are still being held in Gaza. Although the main character in the movie is portrayed by an actress, Ori Avinoam, many residents of Nir Oz appear in the film as themselves.