bSince the first Berlinale in 1951, a jury has awarded the Golden and Silver Bears to films that are successful in the competition. The capital’s heraldic animal also adorns the logo of the international film festival. The Junge Union gave the Berlinale bear a new look on Monday. In a graphic shared on social media, the bear is wearing a Palestinian scarf on his head and holding a Palestinian flag.
“Defund Berlinale,” it says on the so-called Sharepic – the film festival’s financial support should be withdrawn, according to the CDU/CSU youth organization’s demand. With around 500,000 visitors every year, the Berlinale is the largest public festival in the world and therefore an important cultural flagship in Germany. Now the film festival is coming under massive criticism. Several award winners made anti-Israel statements on stage last weekend, such as claiming a genocide against the Palestinians, talking about apartheid or calling for an end to German arms deliveries to the Jewish state.
The co-director of the Berlinale, Mariette Rissenbeek, called on Hamas to “immediately” release the hostages kidnapped to Gaza during a speech at the awards ceremony. A spokeswoman later announced that the award winners’ statements “in no way reflected the festival’s attitude.”
WELT also made Instagram posts open to the general public on Sunday afternoons for a short time were shown on the official channel of the Berlinale subsection Panorama. Among other things, the slogan “Free Palestine – from the river to the sea” was spread, according to which there was no place for Israel between the Jordan and the Mediterranean, where Israel is located. The Berlinale management states that the contributions “do not come from the festival and do not represent the attitude of the Berlinale”. A spokeswoman stated that the Instagram channel had been hacked: “We have filed a criminal complaint against unknown persons and condemn this criminal act in the strongest possible terms.”
State Minister Claudia Roth (Greens), Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media, is now the main target of criticism. 12.6 million euros of the Berlinale’s annual budget of 33 million euros comes from Roth’s house.
At the festival opening on February 15th, Roth had clear words. “This October 7th was a day of murder, destruction, a day of hundreds of rapes and hostage-takings,” she said of the major Hamas attack on Israel. The “wave of violence against Jewish people in our country” horrifies and deeply shames them.
Shortly after the award ceremony a week later, which was characterized by numerous anti-Israel speeches while simultaneously omitting the Hamas terror, Roth simply said: She congratulated all the award winners, the Berlinale brought “the entire diversity of stories and perspectives in the world to Berlin brought”.
“Then it’s in the wrong place.”
The former Green Party leader only made her statement clear on Monday. “The statements at the Bear Awards at the Berlinale on Saturday evening were shockingly one-sided and characterized by a deep hatred of Israel,” she said. “It is not acceptable if, on an evening like this, international filmmakers do not address the brutal terrorist attack by Hamas on over a thousand people living peacefully and celebrating at a festival and their cruel murder.” The events will be dealt with.
A recording of the award ceremony, which a “Tagesspiegel” editor drew attention to on Monday, shows that Roth and the governing mayor of Berlin, Kai Wegner (CDU), clapped after a controversial speech by two award winners. Israeli director Yuval Abraham said just before: “There are many people who have power in this room, ministers, people whose voices are heard. We must call for a ceasefire and a political solution and an end to the occupation.”
“The German cultural sector has a massive anti-Semitism problem”
There were several anti-Semitic statements at the Berlinale. Philipp Peyman Engel, the editor-in-chief of the “Jüdische Allgemeine”, is demanding consequences – also from the Green Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth.
“Claudia Roth’s applause went to the Jewish-Israeli journalist and filmmaker Yuval Abraham, who spoke out in favor of a political solution and peaceful coexistence in the region,” Roths shared Authority on Monday afternoon. Wegner did not respond to a WELT request about this on Monday.
In his speech, Abraham also accused Israel of pursuing a policy of “apartheid.” Before Abraham’s speech, Palestinian director Basel Adra accused Israel of “slaughtering” Palestinians and called on Germany to stop supplying weapons to Israel. The filmmakers were awarded the Berlinale Documentary Film Prize, sponsored by Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg, for the film “No Other Land”. Director Adra had already described Israel as a racist apartheid state in July last year.
The CSU in particular is now targeting Roth. Party leader Markus Söder said on Monday: “If such a form of anti-Semitism takes place on an open stage and there is no reaction, especially from the responsible state minister, then that is a difficult, a difficult moment.” Dorothee Bär, Union faction deputy in the Bundestag , said WELT: “Under this Minister of State for Culture, one anti-Semitism scandal follows the next.” And Bavaria’s Art Minister Markus Blume told WELT: “Warm words don’t help. Action must follow. If Claudia Roth is not able to do that, she is in the wrong place.”
Roth, however, is defended by her party friend Marlene Schönberger. “For months, the Minister of State for Culture has been resolute in her approach to the problem of anti-Semitism in art and culture,” said the Bundestag member WELT. What has been ignored for decades cannot be solved so quickly.
With reference to the award ceremony and without reference to Roth and Wegner, the anti-Semitism expert from the Green parliamentary group said: “I find it shocking and shameful that there is applause in the German art and cultural landscape when apartheid is mentioned in the context of Israel and the Jewish state is accused of genocide. Where is the dissent, where is the courage?”
After the Documenta, Roth admitted mistakes
Roth had already not left a good impression on parts of the Jewish community when dealing with the numerous anti-Semitism scandals at Documenta in 2022. Before the start of the world art exhibition, the former Green Party leader defended the Ruangrupa artist collective from accusations of anti-Semitism and said that she “does not raise or lower her thumb over individual works of art as a cultural police officer”. The “Jewish General” demanded Roth’s resignation during the ongoing Documenta.
Roth later admitted mistakes. “Perhaps I should have been louder and clearer in the discussions leading up to the Documenta opening,” she said in August 2022. In January of last year, she added: “It’s a really deep, sad veil that hangs over this Documenta lies above and beyond the fears and injuries that have arisen among Jews and the horror among all of us.”
Filmmakers talk about “genocide” and “apartheid” in Israel – and receive applause
The film festival in the capital ended with anti-Israel statements: Some directors used the moment of the awards ceremony on stage to denounce the “genocide” against the Palestinians.
When the Bundestag condemned the BDS boycott movement against Israel as anti-Semitic in 2019, Roth, together with Jürgen Trittin, today’s Federal Family Minister Lisa Paus and other Greens, did not agree to a cross-party proposal from the Union, SPD, Greens and FDP. In one Explanation The Green MPs said at the time that they rejected the goals of the BDS, but did not want to condemn all supporters as anti-Semitic. “The last few years have shown that I was wrong,” said Paus in “Spiegel” in November last year. “If I had the opportunity again, I would agree to the cross-party motion with the knowledge I have today.”
Asked by the Union parliamentary group in a current minor question whether Roth agreed with this statement made by her cabinet colleague, said the federal government simply that when assessing the BDS movement, reference should be made to assessments by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. Roth is taking a public stance against calls for a boycott and is opening up new opportunities for cooperation with Israeli cultural institutions, as was the case most recently during a delegation trip to Israel from January 10th to 14th, 2024, according to the federal government.
The state of Berlin also supports the Berlinale financially, to a much lesser extent than the federal government. In the capital, Senator for Culture Joe Chialo (CDU) withdrew a recently introduced anti-discrimination clause for cultural funding in January after legal concerns.
Chialo announced a new clause to WELT: “It is important to find a legal regulation that ensures that hatred is not financed with taxpayers’ money,” he said. “Four Senate administrations under the Governing Mayor are currently working on this together.”
The President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster, said: “Once again, many politically responsible people are cowering at the Berlinale and do not have the courage to stand up for Israel hatred in the face of applause.”