Efe Berlin

Berlin

Updated Sunday, February 25, 2024-20:49

  • Dahomey Cinema or decolonization according to director Mati Diop wins the Golden Bear

In recent hours

, German media, journalists and politicians have criticized the

cultural industry

on their pages and on social networks after the gala that closed the 74th edition of the Berlinale on Saturday, which they described as unilateral when several of the winners expressed their

solidarity with Gaza and obviate the terror of Hamas.

"Solidarity with Gaza, silence on Hamas," headlines the "Spiegel";

"Applause for hatred of Israel at the Berlinale"

, headlines the "Berliner Zeitung";

or "Pro-Palestine spectacle at the Berlinale: culture fails as a serious place for dialogue", can be read in the "Tagesspiegel".

The Palestinian filmmaker and activist Basel Adra, co-director along with three other filmmakers of the film that won the best documentary,

"No Other Land"

, about the West Bank, demanded in his speech when accepting the award that Germany stop supplying weapons to Israel.

He added that he found it difficult to celebrate the award while "tens of thousands of

people are being massacred

in Gaza", words that were met with loud applause, while his Israeli colleague Yuval Abrahan spoke of occupation and apartheid.

The American filmmaker and activist Ben Russell, co-director with Guillaume Cailleau of the film "Direct Action", distinguished as best film in the Encounters section and with a special mention in the best documentary category,

accused Israel of genocide

, words that also They were applauded.

Only the co-director of the Berlinale, Mariette Rissenbeek, made an allusion to Hamas and called on the terrorist organization to release the hostages, while calling on

the Israeli Government to alleviate the suffering of the civilian population

of Gaza and facilitate a quick peace. .

"The closing gala made it clear once again that the cultural industry is incapable of

also taking into account Israel's point of view

and of showing even some empathy for the suffering of Israelis," writes the "Tagesspiegel."

He adds that after "the lack of solidarity with Israel on the part of the culture sector shortly after the brutal attack by Hamas, now the unilateral Berlinale shows that culture

has a huge problem with Israel

", being "incapable of differentiating" .

"I don't know what seems worse to me. The talk about the genocide, the applause or the fact that no one really stood up and said something against it," lamented

social democrat Michael Roth

, president of the parliamentary Foreign Affairs committee in his X account.

Meanwhile, the president of the parliamentary commission on Official Secrets, the green Konstantin von Notz, demanded that cultural professionals, "also international ones,

know and be able to contextualize

political and historical contexts and facts."

He added that "talking about genocide is, at best, naive and stupid, and at worst,

openly anti-Semitic

."

The vice president of the parliamentary Committee on Culture and Media, the Christian Democrat Marco Wanderwitz, pointed out, for his part, that "this Berlinale must be evaluated very carefully" from the point of view of cultural policy.

"Unfortunately there were

several uncontested anti-Israeli statements

on stage and from the public that should not be accepted. This cannot be the case; it has nothing to do with artistic freedom," he added.