14 July 2011
BEIRUT: The U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel and Artists Against Apartheid, International Alliance, have issued a joint statement calling on Palestinian filmmaker Sameh Zoabi to withdraw his film from the Jerusalem Film Festival, which closes Saturday.
“As you have pledged support for the Cultural Boycott of Israel, we were surprised to learn of the inclusion of your film ‘Man Without a Cell Phone’ in the Jerusalem Film Festival of 2011,” said the statement released late Tuesday.
“Further,” the statement continued, “we are disappointed to learn of the Doha Film Institute participating in normalization with Israel through an Israeli-Qatari coproduction with an Israeli production company, with its co-production represented as an Israeli film in the Jerusalem Film Festival in the Israeli Competition.”
Zoabi’s film, originally titled “Ish Le Lo Celulari” (Bela Mobile, in Arabic), had its world premier at 2010’s Doha-Tribeca Film Festival. An Israel / France / Belgium / Palestine / Qatar co-production, the film was the first to issue from cooperation between an Arab funding agency and an Israel production firm.
The film, the debut feature Zoabi (a ’48 Palestinian and Israeli citizen), is a light-hearted comic drama about the marginalized and subdivided state of Palestinian families in a village “that the Israelis renamed to help Arab Israelis forget their Palestinian roots.”
“In 2006,” the boycott coalition statement continued, Zoabi “joined other Palestinian artists in stating that: ‘We call upon the International community to join us in the boycott of Israeli film festivals, Israeli public venues, and Israeli institutions supported by the government, and to end all cooperation with these cultural and artistic institutions that to date have refused to take a stand against the Occupation, the root cause for this colonial conflict.’ JFF is one such event to boycott.”
“Regardless of the content of your film, or your belief in justice and equality, screening your film at JFF would use apartheid as its backdrop. The Jerusalem Foundation, one of JFF’s key sponsors, regularly cooperates with the Jerusalem municipality and features Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat as its honorary chairman “Your participation in JFF would contradict the 2006 statement, and severely undermines the campaign for the cultural boycott of Israel, supported through the work of Palestinian, Israeli and international activists.
“In 2006, PACBI stated: ‘the Jerusalem Film Festival receives the ongoing support of the Israeli Ministry of Education and Culture, as well as the Jerusalem Municipality and the office of the mayor. All of these institutions are key nodes in the structures maintaining the colonization of East Jerusalem.’”
The statement quoted remarks from The Boycott Divestment and Sanctions group Boycott From Within, whose members are Israeli citizens, supporting PACBI’s positions and notes that members of the Israeli Knesset recognize the potential impact of the BDS Movement, and are now passing laws to outlaw its activities.
Zoabi has not issued a reply to the boycott coalition’s open letter.
