September 6th, 2024

According to a popular ad for Staples that features a dad skipping through the store buying school supplies as he anticipates his children going back to school, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year.” Film lovers will agree. When cottages get closed up and the temperature drops, there’s an exciting buzz in the air that has nothing to do with the approaching High Holy days. Nope, it’s the thrill of the Toronto International Film Festival. With the arrival of TIFF in Toronto, come films galore, celebrities in town, and movie buffs meticulously planning their schedules.

Also taking place at this time are the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado, and Italy’s famous Venice International Film Festival. I’ve never followed VIFF before, but I mention it now because it is in the news.  Well, in the news I read at least. The news reported that VIFF is NOT boycotting Israeli films in this year’s offerings. This decision came as more than 300 film industry figures from around the world signed a letter from a group that calls itself “Artists for Palestine Italia”. Their letter urged the Venice International Film Festival to remove two Israeli films from the festival’s line-up. To his credit, the director of the VIFF, Alberto Barbera, refused.

The two Israeli films in question are Why War from director Amos Gitai, and Al Klavim Ve’Anashim (“Of Dogs and Men”). The films should be removed, the API letter stated, because the Israeli production companies behind them are “complicit in whitewashing Israel’s oppression against Palestinians” in Gaza.  By now we are conditioned to hear things like that, so I don’t do much more than roll my eyes and sigh.

Enter Barbera with his statement: “We must not forget the massacre that took place which sparked this conflict.” Halleluyah. Good for him. Good for us. What a refreshing response from someone outside of our community. But wait, there’s more. I should quit reading while I’m ahead, or maybe Barbera should have quit talking while he was ahead. Instead, he continued: “What Netanyahu is doing in Gaza is a war crime, and so was October 7.”

Oh, well. We’ve reached a point when I suppose we need to be satisfied with baby steps. Or maybe we’re just plain old exhausted from speaking out all the time, constant battles with media, and trying to correct the narrative. But let’s be grateful for anything good in our direction, yes? Even if he equates Israel’s actions with those of Hamas on Oct 7, at least he’s keeping his professional integrity*. And that’s something. Festivalgoers will now get to see Israeli films in Venice. And that’s more than something. That’s as it should be.

Am Yisrael Chai!

*He didn’t boycott the films, he said, because he would not withdraw a film merely on ideological grounds.