Cinemascope

Isn’t this the really fantastic Mr. Fox?

The Israeli distributor of all of Ken Loach’s recent films, Mrs. Nurit Shani, spoke yesterday before the Haifa Film Festival screening of Loach’s “Looking for Eric”. This is the first of Ken Loach’s films to be released in Israel after Loach called and pushed for the boycott of Israeli films at the Edinburgh, Melbourne and Toronto film festivals. There have been voices suggesting that in return, Israeli viewers and distributors boycott Loach’s films henceforth.

Shani, an art-house distributor who turned films by Almodovar and Danny Boyle into blockbuster hits even by Hollywood numbers, has handled all of Loach’s films in Israel since 1992’s “Raining Stones” said before the screening that Loach, one of her favorite directors, “has a rare humanistic voice in his films… I have continued to show his films even as he was criticizing Israel and its policies. I believe that artists have a right to speak his mind. Unfortunately I recently discovered that Mr. Loach does not share my views. The man who I have thought to be a great humanist has turned out to be a man who does not believe that those who do not share his politics have no freedom of speech, an artist who goes out of his way to silence other filmmakers, his colleagues, from speaking and presenting their works internationally. I see his acts as hypocritical ones, a slap in the face of democracy, and a contradiction to the humanist spirit of his films.”

Shani added that after Loach’s attempts to hurt the Israeli film industry, she had to think what to do with his latest film, and how to respond to a growing voice in Israel calling to boycott Loach in return. She then came to the conclusion that “Looking for Eric” will be released in Israel as planned but that “all the profits from this film, and Loach’s next film, will be donated to the Israeli Film Fund for the distribution of Israeli films abroad. I believe that the only way to fight Loach’s acts of censorship, is to make sure that the voice of the Israeli filmmaker, and the outstanding output of recent Israeli movies, will be heard worldwide.”

I’m not sure that Ken Loach is all that happy that his films are shown in Israel, but I guess that he can’t do much about the distribution deals signed by his production companies (although, I’ve never heard Loach saying he was donating the Israeli minimum guarantee down-payment to aid Palestinian refugee camps, so in a way he’s being living quite nicely off the Israeli money he calls others to boycott). And I’m not sure that Israelis will flock to a Ken Loach film now (although “Raining Stones” and “Ae Fond Kiss” were rather big his in Israel). Similarly, it should be added that because most Iranian films are French co-productions and distribution is handled by French companies, most of them are shown in Israel and are very well received by audiences here, even as the Iranian leader is calling to annihilate Israel and stocking up on nukes (Majid Majidi’s “Song of Sparrows” is currently showing in Tel Aviv. Betcha there’s never been an Israeli film shown in Tehran).

Loach should hop over and see: many Israelis - such as myself - oppose the occupation as much as he does, oppose the policies of the current government, whom some of us didn’t vote for. We write about it on our blogs and newspaper, or make movies about it, hoping that our voice will be heard locally and internationally and that ultimately a change will come. I agree with Shani: Loach’s automatic boycott of Israeli art reeks of hypocrisy and cultural-terrorism. The irony that Loach will now unwittingly help fund the films he will later boycott is a rather amusing one, I must say.

Worth reading: Vanessa Redgrave, a staunch critic of Israel’s policies in regards to the Palestinians, joins Julian Schnabel and Martin Sherman in writing to the New York Review of Books against the banning and boycott of Israeli films.