Venice: Amos Gitai Rejects Calls for Boycott of New Film ‘Why War’
The Israeli director used the press conference for his new film to call for an end to the war in Israel and Gaza and to condemn both Hamas and the Israeli government.
Israeli director Amos Gitai has batted back calls for a boycott of his new film Why War and said both sides of the Israel–Palestine conflict need to clean out their current leaderships for peace to prevail.
Premiering this weekend of out of competition at the Venice Film Festival, Why War takes its cue from correspondence in the early 1930s between Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud on the question of the human race’s bellicose nature and how to avoid war. The work mixes reenactments of the two figures reciting their exchanges, with historic images of war in art and acted scenes of characters dealing with the psychological impact of conflict.
Although the movie has no direct connection to today’s conflict in the Middle East, Gitai and Why War have been the target of protests in Venice. Around 300 filmmakers signed an open letter opposing the movie, and Dani Rosenberg’s Hebrew-language drama Al Klavim Veanashim (Of Dogs and Men), calling for a boycott of both movies. The artists, including a number of Palestinian filmmakers and actors, including Oscar-nominated Hany Abu-Assad, Rosalind Nashashibi, Raed Andoni and Saleh Bakri, as well as filmmakers Enrico Parenti and Alessandra Ferrini; and actors Niccolò Senni, Simona Cavallari, and Paola Michelini, claimed Why War was “created by complicit Israeli production companies that contribute to apartheid, occupation and now genocide through their silence or active participation in artwashing.”