After anti-Semitic insults were posted on the Instagram social media site of the Berlin Film Festival’s Panorama section, the festival announced on Monday that it has filed criminal charges in response.
The festival’s organisers also made an effort to disassociate the Berlinale administration from some of the award winners’ positions during Saturday’s closing ceremony, following a politically contentious edition.
The Berlin Film Festival for anti-Semitic hacking, and winning statements are criticised.
The Berlinale Panorama section’s Instagram account was momentarily compromised, according to the organisers, and anti-Semitic image-text messages concerning the Middle East war were uploaded there on Sunday, the day after the festival ended. These remarks are not from the festival and do not reflect the festival’s opinions.
The Berlinale has also brought criminal proceedings against unidentified individuals. An investigation has been launched by the State Criminal Office (LKA).
The festival’s guests and policies this year served as a platform for contentious debates over antisemitism, the war in Palestine, the war in Ukraine, and Germany’s far-right political movements.
Some people used Saturday’s closing ceremony to make additional remarks. One of the most impressive was American director Ben Russell, who wore a keffiyeh, a symbol of Palestinian solidarity, when he won an award for his Encounters segment film “Direct Action.”
During his winning speech, Basel Adra, co-director of “No Other Land,” expressed how hard it was for him to celebrate while his fellow Palestinians in Gaza were being “slaughtered and destroyed.”
The festival acknowledged that it is powerless to address remarks that are lawful, but its statement from Monday seemed to wish the situation away.
“We appreciate the outcry that some of the award winners’ remarks were viewed as excessively biassed and, in certain situations, improper. We were quite explicit about the Berlinale’s perspective on the Middle East conflict in the lead-up to and throughout our festival, demonstrating that we do not have polarised opinions.
Nonetheless, the Berlinale regards itself as a forum for candid communication between nations and cultures, both now and in the past. In a statement credited to co-chief Mariëtte Rissenbeek, the festival stated, “We must therefore also tolerate opinions and statements that contradict our own opinions, as long as these statements Do not violate the law or act in a racist or other discriminatory manner towards individuals or groups of individuals.”
“We believe that more nuanced remarks on this topic from the award winners and attendees at the ceremony would have been appropriate from a content standpoint,” Rissenbeek said.
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With the inclusion of international viewpoints, we aim to discuss with other social and political institutions how to hold a public conversation in Germany about this hotly debated subject without having any particular position interpreted as anti-Semitic or anti-Palestinian. Both as an international film festival and as a culture at large, we must confront this divisive subject.
After the “No Other Land” award speech, Yuval Abraham, the other co-director, reportedly got death threats, according to a report by Euronews. Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner took issue with the speeches made by Abraham and Adra. What transpired yesterday at the Berlinale was an intolerable relativization, the writer stated on X, formerly Twitter. As far as the arts are concerned, antisemitism has no place in Berlin.
The ambassador of Israel to Germany, Ron Prosor, added his perspective as well. He stated on X, “Once again, the German cultural scene demonstrates its bias by providing a red carpet only for artists who support the delegitimization of Israel […] antisemitic and anti-Israel discourse was met with applause.”
