What a failure! In order to avoid this in the future, here is a short guide on how such a Berlinale scandal could never happen again. By “such a scandal” I mean: filmmakers, the jury, the Berlinale festival management, the activists and cultural politics, i.e. those who see themselves as progressive, empathetic, cultured or intellectual, have blamed the massacre and the deaths on September 7th. October 2023 hidden or repressed.
Instead, Israel was unilaterally accused of genocide. And no one in the woke, cool and party-loving, champagne-thirsty and finger-food-hungry Berlinale Palast audience reminded the activists on stage of October 7th. That’s why we’re taking this over here and explaining it point by point to the Berlinale organizers, those in charge of politics and the viewers:
1) Please learn to read!
You accuse Israel of genocide and apartheid and applaud these statements. You are taking over Hamas’s PR strategy. So you are supporting a terrorist organization that is firmly anchored in the population of Gaza and the West Bank, which despises women, throws homosexuals off high-rise buildings, murders, tortures, rapes and wants to destroy the nation of Israel with ten million inhabitants.
The ideology can be found in Hamas’ charter. On 36 pages. Why don’t any of you and your claqueurs know this contempt for humanity that has been written down and spread millions of times? Have culture people and woke film groupies obviously forgotten how to read?
2) Only speak if you know what to do!
A large part of the cultural scene has a problem dealing with the Middle East war. The core can be summarized with a quote from Karl Valentin: “Blessed are those who have nothing to say and still keep their mouths shut.” The work of art can and must be free. But the makers have to inform themselves about the facts before they make political statements in front of an audience of millions on TV. On October 7, Hamas committed the worst massacre of Jews since the Shoah. There are still a number of civilians, old people, young girls, children and babies trapped hostage in the Hamas tunnels. Among them is David Cunio, who represented the film Youth at the Berlinale in 2013 as an actor. He is a hostage.
Not a word about him from Berlinale bosses Mariette Rissenbeek and Carlo Chatrian or from the prize winners. Rissenbeek only mentioned the hostages once in a bloodless, read-out statement, but not Cunio’s name, which is closely associated with the Berlinale. Indifference stood there as a huge pink elephant in the crowded room.
3) Learn to differentiate and accept contradictions!
The polarization in society through social media does not stop at the cultural scene. In addition, provocation generates the scene’s most important currency, namely attention. There is also an unhistorical awareness and opportunism towards a supposed zeitgeist. Don’t parrot what your bladder tells you. It is absolutely right to mention the immense suffering in Gaza, but please do so in the context of the cause.
4) Politicians and organizers, do your work!
Be it hatred of Jews at the Documenta, the blown-up Hannah Arendt reading in the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum, the BDS letter of support or the Berlinale: all of these, according to Cultural Council Managing Director Olaf Zimmermann, were scandals with announcements. It was clear everywhere what was going to happen. At the Berlinale with the film No other Land, a documentary about the eviction and destruction of Palestinian houses by the Israeli army. The Berlinale management should have known how exciting this film would be. Inviting him after October 7th was a risk. The organizers should have cushioned this beforehand and involved the moderation. Now the Berlinale is a shambles, which perhaps has one good thing: from now on, organizers must seek dialogue beforehand, promote discussions and empathically ensure that one-sided opinions are differentiated with facts.
5) Claudia Roth, kill your Darlings!
It is not the first scandal to fall during the term of office of the Green Minister of State for Culture. The documenta is more or less a field of rubble.
Claudia Roth gave an amazingly good speech at the opening of the Berlinale. Unfortunately, she completely failed in the end. Therefore the appeal directly to the state sponsor: Claudia Roth, you are extroverted, you could have gone on stage and charmingly defused the matter with an intervention. Never let atmospheres lull you emotionally again. This is your weakness: glamor at the Berlinale, art celebration at the documenta. But doing cultural policy doesn’t mean presenting brightly colored clothes on red carpets and praising the cultural people; rather, cultural policy is hard work, black bread, and a lot of knowledge about connections and assertiveness – not least in your own house.
“The horror continues,” you declared last week in the Bundestag’s culture committee. You didn’t know anything about the anti-Semitic post with the slogan “Free Palestine – From the River to the Sea” that was distributed via a Berlinale Instagram channel. (Editor’s note: According to the Berlinale, the channel was hacked and the posts were immediately deleted. The film festival filed a criminal complaint against unknown persons.) But did you really listen to Daniel Botmann, the managing director of the Central Council of Jews, when he said in the cultural committee: “If anti-Semitism is not dealt with decisively and consistently in art and culture, as well as in other areas of society, safe spaces for Jews will always be tighter until they are completely pushed out of them”?
6) Clarity instead of censorship
The artwork is free. Absolutely. It can be one-sided and provocative. But what is not free is the false and inhumane chatter that celebrates reversal of guilt by some clueless directors or actors in front of a huge international audience – and that after the massacre on October 7th. Such nonsense must never be broadcast to the world again, especially never again from Berlin.