Booker Prize winner Arundhati Roy is not just a novelist, but also a renowned political essayist. However, she has recently backed out of attending the Berlin Film Festival after ‘jaw-dropping’ remarks from the jury left her ‘shocked and disgusted’. Controversy had erupted after the panel chief insisted that film-makers must ‘stay out of politics’ while commenting on the ongoing atrocities in Gaza.
Roy was set to attend a screening of her film, ‘In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones’. With the screenplay written by her, this 1989 film was selected for the festival’s classics section this year. An invitation which was described as an unexpected emotional weight turned solemn, four decades later. Sharing that her film was chosen to be screened, she wrote, “There was something sweet and wonderful about this for me.”
However, she announced her decision not to attend the archival display, which is an otherwise celebratory moment for any artist.
Why did Arundhati Roy withdraw?
At a press conference on Thursday, the leader of the jury, German director Wim Wenders, was questioned whether cinema influenced politics. He opined that while films might have a personal effect on people, they had no impact in changing political decisions. Further, he noted that the filmmakers had been asked to ‘stay out of politics’, emphasising how they had no role in politics, but as a mere contradiction to it.
Similar sentiments were echoed by Polish producer EwaPuszczyńska. Specifically asked about Germany’s support for Israel in the Gaza crisis, the producer shared that artists could not be responsible for the political choices of their audiences.
‘A way of shutting down conversation’
Arundhati Roy later issued a written statement with the news outlet, The Wire. Calling for an impartial dialogue and defogged version of the narrative, she said that such restrictions at such platforms, especially, is “a way of shutting down a conversation about a crime against humanity even as it unfolds in real time.” She added that this was the very time when “artists, writers and film makers should be doing everything in their power to stop it”.
She continued, “Let me say this clearly…What has happened in Gaza, what continues to happen, is a genocide of the Palestinian people by the State of Israel.” She added that the violence was “supported and funded by the governments of the United States and Germany, as well as several other countries in Europe, which makes them complicit in the crime.”
These ‘jaw-dropping’ comments, as per Roy, stunned her. Not only what they said about art, but also their denial. She said that while this wasn’t an isolated incident to influence her opinion on Germany, she had ‘profoundly disturbed’ for a time now. Their position on Palestine was not unanimously one-sided since she had ” always received political solidarity” when she spoke “to German audiences.”
Announcing her refusal to attend, her statement read, “If the greatest filmmakers and artists of our time cannot stand up and say so.” She wrote further, “They should know that history will judge them…With deep regret, I must say that I will not be attending the Berlinale,” as the statement concluded.