The Academy of Oscars criticized for its lack of support for the Palestinian director – Liberation
The controversy rumbles this Friday, March 28 in Hollywood. Hundreds of members of the Oscar Academy, including Joaquin Phoenix, Penelope Cruz and Richard Gere, signed a letter denouncing the lack of support from the institution to a Palestinian director recently arrested by the Israeli army. After receiving the Oscar for the best documentary in early March to No Other Landa feature film on colonization in the West Bank, Hamdan Ballal was attacked by Israeli settlers At the start of the week, according to a local NGO. He was then placed in detention by the Israeli authorities, before being released on Tuesday.
Unlike many bodies in the global film industry, which immediately denounced its treatment, the Academy of Oscars has first remained silent. On Wednesday, she sent a letter to her members in which she condemned the fact of « Drink artists or suppress them because of their work or their point of view »without naming Hamdan Ballal. An attitude deemed too timid by many Hollywood professionals: Friday at midday, their letter brought together more than 600 signatures. « It is indefensible that an organization rewards a film the first week of March, then does not defend its directors a few weeks later »consider these members of the Academy, by condemning « Brutal assault and illegal detention » from Hamdan Ballal.
For them, the management of the academy « Is far from being up to the feelings called this moment ». Contacted by AFP, she did not immediately respond. According to the specialized site Deadlineits board of directors summoned an extraordinary meeting on Friday morning to cope with this swelling controversy.
No Other Land Chronicle The forced displacement of Palestinians by Israeli troops and the settlers in Masafer Yatta, a region of West Bank that Israel declared a restricted military zone in the 1980s. Despite its Oscar, the documentary had trouble finding a distributor in the United States.
Israeli authorities assured that Hamdan Ballal had been imprisoned for « Having launched stones ». After his release, the director said he was targeted because of his documentary. He explained to AFP that he had been attacked by settlers while soldiers were pointing their weapons on him. “I thought I live my last moments because of the violence of the blows. (…) I think it was because I won the Oscar ”he said on Wednesday in the village of Soussiya, in the south of the West Bank.
During his detention, the soldiers mentioned his name and the word « Oscar » during the changes of guard, he said. His Israeli colleague Yuval Abraham, who co-produced the film with him, has denounced for several days the lack of support from the Academy of Oscars.
