In the most significant act of mobilisation for Palestine that we have seen in Western film and television, thousands of people have signed a pledge not to work with Israeli film institutions complicit in the genocide in Gaza.
“In this urgent moment of crisis, where many of our governments are enabling the carnage in Gaza, we must do everything we can to address complicity in that unrelenting horror,” read the pledge published by Filmworkers for Palestine on Monday.
“We pledge not to screen films, appear at or otherwise work with Israeli film institutions — including festivals, cinemas, broadcasters and production companies — that are implicated in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people.”
Examples of complicity include “whitewashing or justifying genocide and apartheid, and/or partnering with the government committing them,” according to the pledge.
Initially launched with 1,300 signatories, some 4,000 film and television workers had signed on by Thursday of the same week.
Among those who signed up to the pledge are actors Ayo Edibiri, Olivia Coleman, Aimee Lou Wood, Mark Ruffalo and Tilda Swinton, and directors Ava DuVernay, Asif Kapadia, Yorgos Lanthimos, and Boots Riley.
The New Arab spoke to a few of the signatories about why they signed on to the pledge, and why a boycott of Israel by the film industry is vital.
'Art bears witness'
Inspiration for the pledge was drawn from Filmmakers United Against Apartheid, founded in 1987 by directors Jonathan Demme and Martin Scorsese, who refused to screen their films in apartheid South Africa.
This week’s pledge came in response to a letter signed last summer by almost 70 Palestinian filmmakers that condemned Hollywood for its dehumanisation of Palestinians and urged the film industry to do “everything humanly possible” to end the genocide.
British-Palestinian filmmaker Farah Nabulsi signed both the pledge and the letter from Palestinian filmmakers.
"As artists, we have a responsibility not to remain silent in the face of atrocity," Nabulsi told The New Arab.
"Just as cultural boycotts played a crucial role in challenging apartheid South Africa, we too must refuse to normalise or collaborate with institutions complicit in Israel’s ongoing genocide and occupation of the Palestinian people," the filmmaker added.
“The role of art has always been to bear witness, to speak truth when silence is complicity and to affirm the dignity of human life against forces that would destroy it.”
Also among the pledge’s signatories is Jewish-American actor Ilana Glazer, best known as co-creator and co-star of the series Broad City.
"I stand hand in hand with Film Workers For Palestine," Glazer said in a statement to The New Arab.
"Film is a necessary tool for human beings to tell our stories. The people of Palestine have been narrating this story in the midst of a genocidal campaign against them, and their storytelling has worked. We see the truth: they are a beautiful, dignified people who deserve to live in peace and safety.”
Politics cannot be torn from filmmaking, British-Tanzanian documentary filmmaker Ruhi Hamid told The New Arab.
"We don’t work in a vacuum,” Hamid said. "Politics impacts how we make our films, what kinds of stories we tell – so we are so intrinsically part and parcel of the political world. I just can’t separate my artistic endeavours from my politics."
'A cost I have to bear'
As elsewhere in the realm of culture, those in the film and television industry who have spoken up about the genocide in Gaza have faced career-damaging repercussions, including being dropped by agents or seemingly blacklisted.
Television channels have dropped films or documentaries about Palestine and the genocide, and films about Palestine like No Other Land have struggled to secure distribution in the United States – Oscar winner or not.
Film industry workers have said that they have had to self-censor on Palestine so that they do not lose out on work.
Documentary filmmaker Mike Lerner, who recently produced The Mission about a surgeon’s tour of duty in a hospital in Gaza, told The New Arab: "The vast majority of the film industry does not support Palestine. People who are not standing up for Palestinian rights, not criticising the status quo in our industries – those people are complicit and are pro-Zionist by the very fact that they aren’t calling it out."
Hamid told The New Arab that the momentum in support for Palestine has been growing within the film and television industry since the genocide started almost two years ago, but only slowly.
"I think for a lot of people it has taken a lot longer to connect with this because there is always the fear of being accused of anti-Semitism," she explained.
"I think there is a fear that there are a lot of people in the television industry who have sympathies for Israel, and therefore a fear that your work is going to be impacted and that you aren’t going to be seen positively."
Hamid said she believes she is no longer being commissioned for broadcast work because she has been outspoken about the genocide since its start.
“I got a lot of flak from my friends who work in the television industry who are pro-Israel. I got a lot of blowback on social media and was constantly being harangued for my views… in the last 18 months, I’ve had no broadcast work whatsoever, and I don’t think that is by accident,” Hamid shared.
“I can’t pinpointedly say that this is because of my views on Gaza – we just don’t know for sure. But I was constantly in work and now I’m not getting any broadcast work, and I’ve been unfriended by former executives who I’ve made films for in the past. So I’m not surprised when there is fear in this industry about speaking up. People are afraid of losing their jobs… they’re afraid of being blacklisted, losing funding, being dropped from projects.”
Hamid continued: “I’m a veteran filmmaker now – I have a reputation and I don’t have to work all of the time, and I can pick and choose my projects. I’m making those choices, and it costs me, but I think it’s a cost I have to bear.
"There’s a genocide going on in Palestine, in Gaza. I can’t just sit here worrying about my job when there is something far bigger happening.”
'The optics are important'
In what might be read as a sign of growing political consciousness in the film industry, works about Palestine and Israel's genocide in Gaza have been given platforms and are making waves at festivals all over the world in recent months.
Most recently, the Kaouther Ben Hania-directed The Voice of Hind Rajab, about the murder of five-year-old Hind Rajab and several members of her family in Gaza by Israeli forces, won a 23-minute-long standing ovation and the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival.
The film’s star-studded range of executive producers included Rooney Mara, Brad Pitt, and Joaquin Phoenix.
Mara and Phoenix have signed onto the pledge, but Pitt has not.
"It does make a difference when you’ve got internationally known film professionals making a statement,” Hamid said.
"The optics and the visibility – that creates a shift. When you think back to the Oscars in 2024, when Jonathan Glazer made that speech after his win for The Zone of Interest, he was attacked by some in the film industry, until others stood up for him. There is a difference between then and now."
Lerner said he has seen somewhat of a change in the film industry with respect to Gaza, thanks to a growing number of distributors and film festivals more willing to show films about the genocide, if not less immediate and urgent films about Palestine.
"We are now seeing films about Palestine, or pro-Palestinian – let’s say anti-genocide, actually – anti-genocide films are now being distributed, and seeing and gaining audiences. That’s a bit of a shift, and I hope that will continue," Lerner said.
"You have numerous film festivals, and you have some fairer-minded distributors who are more focused on telling the truth. Not the majority of course, but more than there were before."
Do applause and ovations at film festivals for films about the genocide make an impact beyond auditoriums?
"It is a bubble, but this bubble has incredible reach,” Hamid says.
"All sorts of people are watching this. It still sends a message. The momentum is growing on that optical level where people are beginning to speak up about it at film festivals, and that’s hopeful, but whether it shifts the actual industry – that’s another question."
'Boycotts work'
Some in the film industry have signed onto letters expressing solidarity with pro-Palestinian voices or even in condemnation of Hollywood’s passivity regarding the genocide, sometimes in their hundreds.
The Filmworkers for Palestine pledge, however, is a commitment to action. While some forms of pro-Palestinian solidarity lack strategy, boycotts are intentional and effective, Lerner said.
"Boycotts are one of the few tools we have, and it has been successful," Lerner added.
"The attempts to shut down boycott methods here, in the States and elsewhere show that they are effective. Once you start to boycott, then you’re really starting to acknowledge what the struggle is. This film boycott will make people question the industry they are participating in, and how their participation is part of the problem,” he explained.
"It will make people think about their part in this genocide. Are they aiding or abetting it, or are they doing things that try to bring it to an end?"
The boycott by the film industry is part of a much bigger picture of resistance, these signatories to the pledge said.
"This call cannot stop at the cultural sphere – it must grow louder and louder across every part of society: academically, economically, diplomatically and politically," Nabulsi said.
"Only a clear and thunderous message on all fronts can insist that such brutality cannot be accepted as business as usual."
British opponents to the genocide "want the British government to boycott Israeli arms sales, we want the British government to boycott the Israeli economy – that’s what we want," Lerner said.
"We're asking for effective measures to be taken to bring the Zionist entity to its knees, and the only way to do that is through economic sanctions, political sanctions, and cultural sanctions," he continued.
"We have to use whatever power we have to try and bring about justice."
Shahla Omar is a freelance journalist based in London. She was previously a staff journalist and news editor at The New Arab
Follow her on Instagram: @shahlatan