The 81st Venice International Film Festival on Saturday honored Sarah Friedland’s “Familiar Touch” awards for Best Director, Best First Film and Best Actress.
During her acceptance speech for the Luigi de Laurentiis Prize for Best First Film, Friedland took the opportunity to make a political statement and voiced her support for Palestinians.
“As a Jewish American artist working in a time-based medium, I must note, I’m accepting this award on the 336th day of Israel’s genocide in Gaza and 76th year of occupation,” she said.
“I believe it is our responsibility as filmmakers to use the institutional platforms through which we work to redress Israel’s impunity on the global stage. I stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine and their struggle for liberation,” Friedland continued.
Arsen Ostrovsky, international human rights lawyer and CEO of the International Human Rights Forum, called her a “self-hating Jew” who “spout lies against Israel and essentially called for genocide of the Jewish state.”
Last week, the director of the Venice Film Festival, nixed a call to boycott Israeli films because of the 11-month-old war against Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip.
The decision came as more than 300 film industry figures from around the world signed a letter published by Artists for Palestine Italia, urging the festival not to screen two Israeli films.
The signatories claimed that “Why War,” from director Amos Gitai, and Dani Rosenberg’s Hebrew-language film “Al Klavim Veanashim” (“Of Dogs and Men”), were created by Israeli production companies “complicit in whitewashing Israel’s oppression against Palestinians” in Gaza.
“We must not forget the [Oct. 7] massacre that took place which sparked this conflict,” Venice Film Festival director Alberto Barbera told Deadline.
“What [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu is doing in Gaza is a war crime, and so was October 7,” he asserted. “But we wouldn’t ever withdraw a film on ideological grounds. The films that were asked to be withdrawn by the 300 filmmakers are not anti-Palestinian films in any way, quite the opposite.”
Originally published by Israel Hayom.
