Edinburgh Dissuades Israeli Filmmaker
Filed under: Documentary, Foreign Language, Politics, Other Festivals, Cinematical Indie
Organizers of the Edinburgh Film Festival, which begins next week, are trying to avoid controversy by creating some. They sent an email to Israeli filmmaker Yoav Shamir suggesting that he not travel to Scotland to attend the Fest, let alone the screening of his new documentary, Five Days. The organizers, who plan on showing the film whether or not Shamir attends, say they fear for his safety, because of protests against Israel's activity in Lebanon. (The film focuses on Israel's pullout from the Gaza Strip last year.)
Shamir told The Independent that he still isn't sure if he'll go. He wants to make a stand by attending, but doesn't want to be met with threats. The ironic thing is that Shamir is not really known for being supportive of his country's actions, anyway. His last doc, Checkpoint, was actually pretty critical of the Israeli government. Now, one spokesman for the festival is claiming the email was misread and that organizers are currently expecting Shamir to attend (expecting and embracing is not the same, of course).
Certainly international film festivals are meant to be more daring than this.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
8-09-2006 @ 3:20AM
Richard Brunton said...
As soon as this rumour was out on the Internet the EIFF released a very straightforward press release denying that they had told the Director to stay away.
http://www.filmstalker.co.uk/archives/2006/08/eiff_denies_israeli_director_w.html
Here's what they said:
* The screenings of Mr Shamir's film will go ahead as scheduled. There has never been any question of the film being withdrawn.
* Certain news stories have reported that Mr Shamir has been advised not to attend; this is untrue. His visit has never been discouraged by the festival.
* We wrote to Mr Shamir simply because, given that he is our guest, we felt he should be appraised of all the facts pertaining to his visit, and to the various controversy it might engender.
* Should he decide to attend the screenings, we will be delighted to welcome him as our guest.
They have also been extremely good about the funding too, they refused that of the Israeli Government (just the same as any cultural exchange grant offered) and offered to pay for his expenses themselves.
http://www.filmstalker.co.uk/archives/2006/08/festival_defends_israeli_film.html
Richard
Filmstalker, Edinburgh
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