http://jta.org/news/article/2009/07/16/1006578/film-festival-rejects-palestinian-activists Film festival rejects Israel boycott call
July 16, 2009
SYDNEY, Australia (JTA) -- An international film festival rejected calls by Palestinian activists to sever ties with Israeli films and sponsorship.
Melbourne International Film Festival chief executive Richard Moore, responding to an open letter by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, said that films for the festival are not selected on political criteria but on artistic merit.
Moore cited “Young Freud in Gaza,” about a psychotherapist dealing with the trauma of victims of the Mideast conflict, which will be screened at Australia’s largest film festival between July 24 and Aug. 9.
“I'm not going to engage with this issue,” he said. “I'll leave it to audiences to make up their own minds.”
The activists' letter called on the festival ”not to accept blood money” from Israel. It said Israel's sponsorship of the festival “would be tantamount to an implicit endorsement of the war crimes it [Israel] has committed and is still committing in Gaza.
For years the Israeli Embassy in Canberra has supported cultural festivals across Australia, an embassy spokesman told JTA. The spokesman said the embassy was helping with funding to bring Israeli-born director Tatia Rosenthal to Melbourne for the premiere of “$9.99,” the first Israeli-Australian film co-production.
“$9.99,” directed by Rosenthal, is based on award-winning author Etgar Keret’s short stories. The embassy is organizing a red carpet event in Melbourne for Aug. 4.
Moore rejected a threat by prominent British filmmaker Ken Loach to withdraw his film “Looking For Eric” unless the film festival severs ties with Israel.
"We will not participate in a boycott against the State of Israel, just as we would not contemplate boycotting films from China or other nations involved in difficult, longstanding historical disputes,” he said.
Loach prompted the Edinburgh Film Festival in May to return a grant to the Israeli Embassy[/u]
BTW Loach is a member of fags against Israelhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Loach A member of the Labour Party from the early 1960s, he left in the mid-1990s.[1] In November 2004, he was elected to the national council of the Respect Coalition[1] and has also stood for election to the European Parliament on a Respect mandate. He is a supporter of the Socialist Resistance organisation.
In 2007, Loach was one of more than 100 artists and writers who signed an open letter initiated by Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism and the South West Asian, North African Bay Area Queers (SWANABAQ) and calling on the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival "to honour calls for an international boycott of Israeli political and cultural institutions, by discontinuing Israeli consulate sponsorship of the LGBT film festival and not cosponsoring events with the Israeli consulate."[2][3] Loach also joined "54 international figures in the literary and cultural fields" in signing a letter that stated, in part, "celebrating 'Israel at 60' is tantamount to dancing on Palestinian graves to the haunting tune of lingering dispossession and multi-faceted injustice". The letter was published in the International Herald Tribune on 8 May 2008.".[4]
Responding to a report, which he described as "a red herring", on the growth of Antisemitism since the beginning of the crisis in Gaza, he has said: "If there has been a rise I am not surprised. In fact, it is perfectly understandable because Israel feeds feelings of anti-Semitism." He added "no-one can condone violence".[5]
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