Counter New York Film Festival… Voices for Palestine

The New York Counter Film Festival is an event organized for the first time in the United States, as a protest against the New York International Film Festival, which celebrates its 62nd session.

The New York Film Festival is one of the most prominent international film festivals organized in the United States, and its activities come to an end today. The parallel New York Counter Film Festival represents part of another protest action aimed at the festival administration, with the aim of urging a stand against Israel’s crimes and severing its ties with institutions that will support Israel. The parallel festival is organized by several groups active in the field of cinema, and the screenings are spread over eight locations in the center of New York City.
Short and special films will participate in these exhibitions, some of which will be shown for the first time internationally, such as “The Invisible Worm” by Palestinian director Rosalinda Nashashibi, which is a 17-minute short film. The list of shows also includes the film “Animals Paradoxa” by Chilean director Niles Atallah, who withdrew from the film. Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival Earlier this year in protest against the silencing of anti-Palestinian voices.
The parallel festival was not the only form of protest against the New York Film Festival, as dozens of filmmakers and film industry workers sent several statements and letters to the festival administration urging has severed its ties with donors supporting Israel. The signatories of these statements and letters urged the organizers of the New York festival to end their partnership with Bloomberg Philanthropies, which is headed by billionaire Michael Bloomberg, who is known for his positions in support of Israel.
According to one of these statements, the Bloomberg Center has dubious cooperation links with several institutions that work in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which the statement says are illegal organizations. The signatories of these statements and letters asked the New York Film Festival to withdraw its cooperative relationship with the New York Times, Bank of America, Bank of New York Mellon, and Citigroup, which are institutions that supporting and collaborating with the Zionist entity. , according to the signatories. Many of the filmmakers who signed these statements expressed their surprise at the silence surrounding the management of the New York Film Festival at a time when the people of Gaza are subject to genocide and Israel continues to continued to expand the scope of her crimes to include the West. Bank and Lebanon.
In a statement by several participants in the official festival, the signatories announced that they rejected the silence and censorship used on actions and voices in support of the Palestinian struggle. The statement read: “As filmmakers and cultural workers, we refuse to use our work to whitewash war crimes committed by Israel, especially since many of our films that have been shown at the New York Film Festival this year highlighting the violence that the state uses and demanding justice against it.”
The signatories of the statement also denied that Palestinian leader Basil Adra was under control because of his position and creative contribution. Israeli occupation forces stormed Adra’s house in the West Bank, kidnapped his father, tied him up, blindfolded him, and held him in an unknown location before releasing him. if it spreads later. It should be noted that Basil Adra is the director of the film “No Other Land”, which won the Best Documentary Film Award at the Berlin International Film Festival this year.

In another statement issued by a coalition of seasonal workers at the New York Film Festival, he said: “We stand in solidarity with filmmakers and film industry workers in to ask the festival’s board of directors and directors to review their financial relationship with Bloomberg Philanthropies and end its relationship with it, as it is linked to illegal Israeli settlements. ” We also urge the New York Film Festival Board of Directors and its leadership to call for a permanent ceasefire and support the rights of artists, activists and workers who defend Palestine.

The latest statement also called on the festival’s management to sever ties with all anti-Israel donors, such as David Rubinstein, Bill Ackman, and David Geffen, and asked the festival to join the voices calling for a ban on arms exports to Israel. .
The staff say in their statement that they are fully aware that the New York Film Festival is not the only festival in the United States or the world that receives support from Bloomberg Philanthropies, and from other companies and individuals who is involved in Israeli war crimes. While the staff understand, according to this statement, how difficult it is to separate from these donor institutions, they want the New York Film Festival to co -side with justice to be a model for other festivals. These workers also sent a letter to their colleagues in the arts in other institutions asking them to put pressure on their institutions to take a moral stand on the war in the Middle East. In their statement, the workers also drew attention to the challenges facing the New York film industry due to censorship and persecution faced by filmmakers who openly support Palestine.