Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid withdraws from Marseille festival after boycott calls

Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid has withdrawn from the FID Marseille film festival, scheduled for early July, following a boycott initiated by fellow directors. Lapid, known for films like "Synonyms" and "The Kindergarten Teacher," has been a vocal critic of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the ongoing war in Gaza. He stated that the festival organizers "should have assumed their role a bit" in defending his participation.

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We decided with Nadav Lapid to forgo the jury and focus on the essential, the screening of his film and the meeting.

Lapid was slated to join the jury for the festival's 37th edition, which promotes independent fiction and documentaries. He was also scheduled to have a screening of his film "The Policeman" and a discussion about his book. However, an internal call for a boycott by selected filmmakers protesting his presence escalated, leading to further calls against the film screening and discussion.

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It is of course perfectly illegitimate to hold a filmmaker responsible or accountable for the racist, colonialist and genocidal policy conducted by the government of his country.

The FID Marseille festival, in a statement, defended Lapid, asserting that it is illegitimate to hold a filmmaker responsible for their country's policies. The festival emphasized that critical voices, like Lapid's, which examine the violence within Israeli state and society, should be welcomed and heard. Despite this, the boycott resulted in the withdrawal of approximately a dozen films from the festival's 120 programmed entries.

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Singular voices which, like Nadav Lapid's, strive to think about the violence inherent in the state and society of Israel must on the contrary be welcomed and listened to, even if it means contesting or deconstructing the narratives afterwards.