More than 80 filmmakers denounce ‘censorship’ over Gaza at Berlinale
Jury President Wim Wenders’ (second from left), 2026 Berlinale
Alex MacDonald reports in Middle East Eye on 18 February 2026:
More than 80 filmmakers have signed an open letter to the Berlin International Film Festival (better known as Berlinale) criticising the German festival’s stance on Gaza.
The signatories, including Tilda Swinton, Javier Bardem, Mike Leigh, Adam McKay and Avi Mograbi, accused the organiser of “censorship” over the issue and engaging in efforts to “silence” those discussing the issue.
“Last year, filmmakers who spoke out for Palestinian life and liberty from the Berlinale stage reported being aggressively reprimanded by senior festival programmers,” read the letter. “One filmmaker was reported to have been investigated by police, and Berlinale leadership falsely implied that the filmmaker’s moving speech – rooted in international law and solidarity – was ‘discriminatory.'”
The new letter largely comes in response to comments made by German filmmaker Wim Wenders, who is also this year’s jury head, in which he suggested that filmmaking should not be directly political.
Wenders, who began his career in the 1970s as part of the often explicitly left-wing New German Cinema movement, told a press conference last week that they had to “stay out of politics because if we make movies that are dedicatedly political, we enter the field of politics”. “But we are the counterweight of politics, we are the opposite of politics. We have to do the work of people, not the work of politicians,” he said.
Asked about Germany’s support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza, another jury member Ewa Puszczynska said it was an “unfair” question and said there were “many other wars where genocide is committed, and we do not talk about that”.