STRIKE BERLINALE
We call for a strike against the 2025 Berlinale.
The events of the last edition of Berlinale in February 2024 have caused widespread alarm among film workers worldwide. Despite the festival’s long history of creating a space for essential political discourse, Berlinale made clear that it is content to be complicit in the German government's ongoing strategy of aggressively censoring any criticism of Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians. As the 2025 Berlinale approaches and the indiscriminate violence in Palestine has expanded to include the bombing and displacement of the people of Lebanon, we remind film workers of where we were a year ago.
In January 2024, after a wave of political repression across Germany’s cultural sector that predominantly targeted Arab, Jewish, Black and Brown artists, the Berlinale’s shift in priorities was marked by a 2024 press release which, unlike prior years, no longer named “freedom of speech” as a core value of the festival but instead called for “peaceful dialogue.” The boundaries of that dialogue were made disturbingly evident during the festival when the many filmmakers who called for a ceasefire, an arms embargo, or spoke out against the genocide of Palestinians during the awards ceremony were met with vicious backlash from politicians and even death threats after petulant German media outlets denounced them. One filmmaker called on Germany “to respect the UN calls and stop sending weapons to Israel,” while another declared that “there is no just war, and the more people try to convince themselves there’s a just war, the more they commit a grotesque act of self-deception.”
Speaking to the press, German culture minister Claudia Roth attacked the statements made during the awards ceremony as “characterized by a profound hatred of Israel.” Posting on social media, Senator for Culture Affairs Joe Chialo claimed that the award ceremony was “marked by self-righteous anti-Israeli propaganda that has no place on the stages of Berlin.” A government spokesperson told reporters that German head of state Chancellor Olaf Scholz "agrees that such a one-sided stance cannot be allowed to stand," and Kai Wegner, Berlin’s mayor, said “I expect the new management of Berlinale to ensure that such incidents do not happen again.” As such, the culture minister shared that she would be coordinating with Berlinale’s incoming festival director, Tricia Tuttle, and said, “we will draw the necessary conclusions from the reappraisal of this Berlinale.”
Berlinale’s own statement in response to these politicians' vitriol confirmed that Berlinale has no interest in protecting artists who make principled stances of solidarity with Palestinians facing genocide and apartheid, but instead aligned itself with the German government that is complicit in Israel’s crimes. “We understand the outrage,” said then-executive director Mariëtte Rissenbeek about the politicians’ response to the award ceremony. According to Berlinale leadership, the filmmakers’ powerful and morally consistent statements “in no way reflect the festival's position.”
Berlinale’s multiple failures to show even the most basic solidarity with Palestine, including their refusal to name the fact that tens of thousands of Palestinian had been murdered by Israel at that point, stands in stark contrast to the festival’s concrete support and its solidarity statement for Ukrainian and Iranian filmmakers in 2023. Berlinale programmed more than twenty Ukrainian and Iranian films that year, invited six Ukrainian and seven Iranian filmmakers to participate in Berlinale Talents, offered free EFM accreditation to up to 50 Ukrainian filmmakers, and programmed several Iranian panels and films. Such substantial support of Ukrainian and Iranian filmmakers indicates the festival’s ability to platform underrepresented perspectives, especially from filmmakers experiencing indiscriminate violence and occupation, which raises the question: why is Palestine the exception?
Against the ominous backdrop of Germany’s authoritarian intimidation and silencing of Palestinian solidarity including extreme police brutality at demonstrations, raids of cafes, conferences, and activists’ homes, banning Yanis Varoufakis and Ghassan Abu Sittah from speaking in the country, and threats of deportation for liking social media posts, we are left to wonder what measures are being put in place for the 2025 edition of Berlinale in response to demands made by the German Chancellor, the mayor of Berlin and the German culture minister to censor artists speaking out against mass atrocities, especially when the German state has already demonstrated the extent of its control over the directorship structure of the festival. We as artists have to show that what is happening in Germany is not acceptable and stand in solidarity with the cultural workers who have been cancelled, doxxed, and threatened due to their attempts to stand against genocide. We must continue to speak out about the genocide of Palestinians, and now the indiscriminate bombing and mass displacement in Lebanon fueled by German weaponry and foreign policy. It is clear that film workers of conscience who oppose the brutal occupation and slaughter of the Palestinian people cannot participate in Berlinale under current conditions.
Therefore, we call on all film workers to strike Berlinale 2025, including the Talent Forum and the European Film Market. We will not submit our films, we will not allow our films to be programmed, we will not provide services to the festival – we refuse to give our art and labor to an institution that publicly opposes affirmations of the dignity of Palestinian life.
This strike will remain in place until Berlinale leadership agrees to:
1. Publish a statement that affirms the Palestinian right to life, dignity, and freedom; condemns the ongoing Israeli genocide of Palestinians; and commits to uphold the right of artists to speak without constraint in support of Palestinians.
2. Meet STRIKE GERMANY’s basic demands of protecting artists in Germany: support artists’ right to adhere to the Boycott, Divest, Sanction Movement, commit to the Jerusalem definition of antisemitism, and refuse to do political background checks on artists.
3. Develop a program of Palestinian films for Berlinale 2025
4. Sponsor a delegation of Palestinian filmmakers to Berlinale and the European Film Market with funding and logistical support (as is typically done for filmmakers from underrepresented regions) as well as protection. Allow their voices to be heard.
These demands simply ask that Palestinian filmmakers are acknowledged and accommodated with the same care and urgency often afforded to precarious film workers from around the world – notably to Ukrainian and Iranian filmmakers by Berlinale in 2023.
If the current legal, funding, or social conditions in Germany prevent Berlinale leaders from fulfilling these basic demands, then the festival is not worthy of our art or labor.
Berlinale leadership has an opportunity now to stand up for what’s right: to refuse complicity, and to affirm the Palestinian right to life and freedom with their words, resources, and programming.
Alongside this call to Strike Berlinale, we call on ALL film festivals to recognize their moral duty to platform Palestinian cinema, and to commit to the short and long-term planning required to achieve the Palestine Film Institute’s Industry Protocols.
Film Workers for Palestine + STRIKE GERMANY