00:00Well, our cinema expert, Scott Roxborough, is with me here in the studio.
00:05Scott, the signatories of that open letter criticizing the Berlinata,
00:10they accused the festival of censorship.
00:15They accused the festival's management of censorship.
00:18What are they referring to?
00:19I'd really like to know, actually.
00:21They made a couple of claims in the letter.
00:24One is that they called on the festival to take a clear stance
00:28on Israel's aggression in the Gaza war.
00:32Maybe that's justified.
00:33The festival has not done that,
00:34although they've taken stances with the war on Ukraine from Russia's side
00:38and on Iran's crackdown on protesters.
00:42They haven't taken an official stance on Gaza, so that's one critique.
00:45But the critique of censorship, I don't really see any evidence for.
00:48They are saying that they are muzzling voices, pro-Palestinian voices,
00:52people who want to speak out against Israel.
00:53But we did see, just a couple of days ago,
00:55a Finnish film director wearing a watermelon pin,
00:59which is a symbol for support for Palestine,
01:00and speaking directly about that issue.
01:03So I don't really understand how they can accuse the festival of censorship.
01:07Maybe I think they wanted them to take a stronger political stance
01:09that they're not at the moment doing.
01:12Wim Wenders, the famous director,
01:14is head of the jury for this year's festival.
01:17He made that statement saying that we have to stay out of politics, right?
01:24He made that statement.
01:26But the Berlinale, it's always been political, hasn't it?
01:30Yeah, I mean, from the start, it's always been a big festival
01:33with big Hollywood films,
01:34but also a lot of sort of politically important cinema gets shown in Berlin.
01:39And it's always been used as a platform for filmmakers
01:42for filmmakers and for artists to express political views.
01:46With Wim Wenders, who I've known for many, many years,
01:48and I've followed his career for decades,
01:51I don't think, I think it was a very awkward response
01:53to a question he wasn't expecting about Gaza and Israel.
01:58And I would think, I haven't spoken to him since,
02:01but I would think that he meant more that
02:03he didn't think filmmaking should be about policy,
02:06should be about supporting a political party
02:07or that kind of politics.
02:09But the idea that one could accuse Wim Wenders
02:12of not having a political stance,
02:14of not being in support of human rights and so forth,
02:16that ignores his entire career,
02:18both as a filmmaker and as a person.
02:22How did the Gaza War become such a topic
02:26and a controversial topic at this particular film festival?
02:29It basically goes back two years ago, 2024,
02:32when you had a documentary film,
02:35an Israeli-Palestinian documentary film
02:36about settler violence,
02:38Israeli settler violence in the West Bank.
02:40It won the documentary prize here.
02:42The filmmakers on stage
02:43made very strong pro-Palestinian statements
02:46and very harsh critique of Israel on stage
02:49to the general support of the audience.
02:52Afterwards, there was a strong political backlash
02:54here in Germany.
02:55A lot of conservative politicians
02:57were very critical of what happened there.
02:59And some even called for defunding the Berlinale.
03:03And so it sort of made Palestine,
03:06in particular this issue of Palestine and Gaza,
03:08central to how the Berlinale is being seen.
03:12And it's put the festival management
03:15in a very awkward position
03:16of either having to take a very strong statement
03:19or position on the issue in Israel-Gaza,
03:22maybe in opposition to the German government,
03:25who are their main funders,
03:26or trying to be neutral in some way.
03:29And it seems with this issue in particular,
03:31it's impossible to take a neutral stance.
03:33I think a lot of activists would say
03:34you have to be on one side or the other.
03:36It's diplomatically difficult territory
03:38for the festival management.
03:41How dangerous is this discussion for the festival?
03:44I think in some ways,
03:45maybe this discussion itself is not so dangerous,
03:47but focusing entirely on just political issues,
03:51and particularly on this one very divisive political issue
03:53with Israel-Gaza,
03:55it could be very detrimental to the festival.
03:57If Berlin's always been political,
03:59there's always been political elements to the festival,
04:01but it always has been primarily about the cinema.
04:04And if the focus entirely shifts towards politics,
04:08which it seems to be doing now,
04:09I think that will be detrimental to the festival.
04:11One, because a lot of filmmakers
04:14don't want to make politics
04:16the main focus of their movies,
04:17and so maybe they won't want to bring films here to Berlin.
04:22And if Berlin decides to take clear political,
04:26ideological stances on all issues,
04:27they're also going to isolate a large portion of the audience
04:30that maybe don't agree with them.
04:32So I think they're in a very tough bind right now.
04:35Scott, thank you so much.
04:36Our cinema expert, Scott Rotsborough.
04:38We'll see you next time.
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