By Gerd Roth, Sascha Meyer and Coman Hamilton, dpa
BERLIN – There will be an investigation into the onstage criticism of Israel’s bombing of the Gaza Strip during Berlin’s annual international film festival, the Berlinale, over the weekend, Germany’s culture minister said on Monday.
Claudia Roth said Mayor Kai Wegner and the city’s government, who share responsibility for the Berlinale, “will now investigate the incidents at the award ceremony.”
The aim is to find out whether the Berlinale did or did not live up to its claim of being a place for diversity, different perspectives and dialogue, the minister said.
Roth also wants to clarify “how it can be ensured in future that the Berlinale is a place that is free from hatred, hate speech, anti-Semitism, racism, hostility towards Muslims and all forms of bigotry.”
In an awards ceremony concluding the Berlinale, Palestinian filmmaker Basel Adra accepted an award for his documentary about the West Bank and called on Germany to stop sending weapons to Israel, in remarks that were met with applause and cheers from the audience.
“It is very hard for me to celebrate when there are tens of thousands of my people being slaughtered and massacred by Israel in Gaza,” said Adra, whose film “No Other Land” depicts the Israeli settler displacement of Palestinians in villages in the West Bank.
During the awards ceremony on Saturday evening, several other filmmakers criticized Israel over the bombing of Gaza, which has seen more than 29,600 people killed, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-controlled health authority in the strip.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Monday condemned the statements criticizing Israel’s mass bombing of the Gaza Strip.
Scholz agrees “that such a one-sided position cannot be allowed to stand,” said deputy government spokeswoman Christiane Hoffmann.
In any debate on this topic, it is important to keep in mind what triggered this renewed escalation of the conflict – namely the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, the spokeswoman said.
None of the filmmakers mentioned the 1,200 people that Palestinian Hamas militants and others killed in Israel or the some 240 people they kidnapped.
The Berlinale has distanced itself from the statements made by individual filmmakers on the war in the Middle East at the awards ceremony on Saturday evening.
“The statements made by award winners are independent individual opinions. They in no way reflect the festival’s position,” a Berlinale spokeswoman told dpa upon request.
“As long as they remain within the legal limits, we must accept them,” she continued. The Berlinale understands that the statements made by some award winners were “perceived as too one-sided,” but also pointed out that expressions of opinion at cultural events cannot and should not be fundamentally prevented.
During the ceremony on Saturday, Jerusalem-based Israeli filmmaker Yuval Abraham also condemned on stage what he said was “apartheid” conditions being endured by Palestinians in Israel.
Filmmaker Ben Russell used the word “genocide” to condemn Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. Several people on stage meanwhile held up a sign with the words “ceasefire now” on it.
Germany is among Israel’s staunchest allies, and political leaders in Berlin have repeatedly stated that Israel has a right to self defence.
German arms exports to Israel peaked in 2023 with €326.5 million ($353 million) worth of weapons, including 3,000 portable anti-tank weapons and 500,000 rounds of ammunition for firearms, being approved – 10 times as much as in the previous year.
