As filmmakers, context is a crucial aspect of our work and guides us in the stories we tell. It is something we cannot overlook.
The context in which the TLVFest LGBTQ+ film festival takes place has led us to request that our films be withdrawn. The festival has for years been sponsored by the Israeli government, including its current most far-right, fundamentalist, misogynist and homophobic incarnation ever, which bears the responsibility for decades of oppression, subjugation, and disenfranchisement of the indigenous Palestinian population.
We cannot look past this, ignoring calls from Palestinians, and have our names and works in any way associated with what Amnesty International has described as an apartheid regime treating Palestinians as an “inferior racial group.”
While we ache with pain at the loss of all innocent life in the current escalation of violence, we cannot ignore its context and its root cause, namely Israel’s ongoing oppression of Palestinians.
We recognize that ending the violence necessarily entails ending the oppression. Our refusal to engage with TLVFest is our contribution to this end, just as principled artists did during the apartheid rule in South Africa.
Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren
Agniia Galdanova
Alejandro Marín
Vuslat Karan
Burcu Melekoğlu
Juan Pablo González
Bruna Haddad
Jamie Gonçalves
Colectivo Colmena
Tove Pils
QUEER CINEMA FOR PALESTINE 