BERLIN: A politically charged Berlin film festival opened with a movie about the Nazis’ persecution of Gypsy-jazz great Django Reinhardt and a vow by Hollywood’s Maggie Gyllenhaal that Americans were “ready to resist” President Donald Trump.
During the event, US actor Richard Gere said the “biggest crime” of Trump and European right-wing populists was to equate refugees with terrorists as it fomented hate.
A total of 18 movies are vying for the festival’s Golden Bear top prize, which will be awarded on Feb. 18 by a jury led by director Paul Verhoeven.
“I hope we will see a lot of movies that are different, hopefully controversial,” the Dutch filmmaker told reporters, adding that he was ready for “heated arguments” with the jury.
The festival’s kick-off film “Django” marks the directorial debut of Etienne Comar, a French screenwriter and producer.
A virtuoso guitarist and composer who shot to global renown with his delicate melodies, Reinhardt was a member of the Sinti minority who was forced to flee German-occupied Paris in 1943 as Gypsies were being rounded up and sent to concentration camps.
The Nazis tried to enlist Reinhardt for propaganda and morale-boosting for the troops but insisted that he strip out the “Negro sound” from his music including swing and syncopation.
He refused the German tour and, recognizing the grave threat to his clan and fellow musicians, Reinhardt, his elderly mother and pregnant wife became refugees.
However they got waylaid awaiting safe passage to Switzerland in the French border town of Thonon-les-Bains, where he was arrested by German troops, briefly imprisoned and forced to perform.
Comar told AFP that Reinhardt’s tragic aspect came from being a “character blinded by his music, who does not see the world changing, in which the war sneaks up on him and only then does he finally see what is happening.”
He admitted he took some liberties with the actual story but said its essence was true to history and the Catch-22 faced by artists under repressive regimes.
“It is the question: Do you raise your voice by continuing to play music, writing music that expresses your resistance?” he said, noting the lengthy archival work he had done to present an accurate portrait. The film stars Reda Kateb, who appeared with Viggo Mortensen in the Algeria-set war drama “Far From Men.”
Berlin film fest opens with ‘Trump resistance’
Berlin film fest opens with ‘Trump resistance’
Arts festival’s decision to exclude Palestinian author spurs boycott
- A Macquarie University academic who researches Islamophobia and Palestine, Abdel-Fattah responded saying it was “a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship,” with her lawyers issuing a letter to the festival
SYDENY: A top Australian arts festival has seen the withdrawal of dozens of writers in a backlash against its decision to bar an Australian Palestinian author after the Bondi Beach mass shooting, as moves to curb antisemitism spur free speech concerns.
The shooting which killed 15 people at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach on Dec. 14 sparked nationwide calls to tackle antisemitism. Police say the alleged gunmen were inspired by Daesh.
The Adelaide Festival board said last Thursday it would disinvite Randa Abdel-Fattah from February’s Writers Week in the state of South Australia because “it would not be culturally sensitive to continue to program her at this unprecedented time so soon after Bondi.”
FASTFACTS
• Abdel-Fattah responded, saying it was ‘a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship.’
• Around 50 authors have since withdrawn from the festival in protest, leaving it in doubt, local media reported.
A Macquarie University academic who researches Islamophobia and Palestine, Abdel-Fattah responded saying it was “a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship,” with her lawyers issuing a letter to the festival.
Around 50 authors have since withdrawn from the festival in protest, leaving it in doubt, local media reported.
Among the boycotting authors, Kathy Lette wrote on social media the decision to bar Abdel-Fattah “sends a divisive and plainly discriminatory message that platforming Australian Palestinians is ‘culturally insensitive.'”
The Adelaide Festival said in a statement on Monday that three board members and the chairperson had resigned. The festival’s executive director, Julian Hobba, said the arts body was “navigating a complex moment.”
a complex and unprecedented moment” after the “significant community response” to the board decision.
In the days after the Bondi Beach attack, Jewish community groups and the Israeli government criticized Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for failing to act on a rise in antisemitic attacks and criticized protest marches against Israel’s war in Gaza held since 2023.
Albanese said last week a Royal Commission will consider the events of the shooting as well as antisemitism and social cohesion in Australia. Albanese said on Monday he would recall parliament next week to pass tougher hate speech laws.
On Monday, New South Wales state premier Chris Minns announced new rules that would allow local councils to cut off power and water to illegally operating prayer halls.
Minns said the new rules were prompted by the difficulty in closing a prayer hall in Sydney linked to a cleric found by a court to have made statements intimidating Jewish Australians.
The mayor of the western Sydney suburb of Fairfield said the rules were ill-considered and councils should not be responsible for determining hate speech.
“Freedom of speech is something that should always be allowed, as long as it is done in a peaceful way,” Mayor Frank Carbone told Reuters.
