Swiss Festival Drops Israeli Oscar Entry Over Boycott Threats — SkimNews
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- Everybody's Perfect cancelled two screenings of "Tell Me Everything" on Monday, six days before the festival's Oct. 9 opening, after boycott threats from Geneva-based Palestine, Filmer C'est Exister and groups including BDS Geneva, CRAQ, Marad, and Student Coordination for Palestine at the University of Geneva.
- Moshe Rosenthal's "Tell Me Everything" — Israel's submission for the Oscar's international feature category — premiered at Sundance earlier this year and set a record for most nominations at Israel's film academy awards; the film follows a 12-year-old boy who uncovers a "devastating secret" about his father during the 1980s HIV crisis.
- The festival asked Rosenthal and producers Green Productions to declare their stance toward the Israeli government; they responded Saturday saying they do not represent the government and do not finance or produce films supporting or promoting its current policies.
- Artistic director Sylvie Cachin told a Swiss newspaper the cancellation "isn't related to the film itself, but to the desire to avoid controversy just days before the festival's opening," while communications lead Charlotte Spector called it "a three-day decision with lots and lots of heartache."
- Both Everybody's Perfect and Palestine, Filmer C'est Exister receive partial funding from the city of Geneva, and the latter did not respond to Variety's requests for comment by press time.
- The producers pushed back in a statement to Variety: "A film does not represent a government, and filmmakers should not be held responsible for its policies... Would Iranian or American filmmakers be asked to make similar declarations about their governments before their films could be shown?"
- The cancellation follows pledges from actors Javier Bardem and Emma Stone to boycott Israeli film institutions and the earlier booting of Israeli director Nadav Lapid from the FID Marseille jury, though Israel's filmmaking community cites films like Venice-debuting "Naza" and last year's Oscar entry "The Sea" as evidence of internal criticism of the government.
Why it matters: An apolitical queer film about 1980s AIDS was pulled because of its "Israeli" country tag, with the festival itself stating the movie had nothing to do with current events — illustrating how nationality-based cultural boycotts now extend to works with no political content. The festival's demand that filmmakers publicly declare their stance on their government before screening sets a new threshold the producers explicitly challenged.
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