[News] Palestinian Filmmakers Accuse Hollywood of 'Dehumanizing' Their People

Wed Aug 28 17:41:14 EDT 2024

variety.com
<https://variety.com/2024/film/global/palestinian-filmmakers-accuse-hollywood-dehumanizing-gaza-israel-1236120786/>
Palestinian
Filmmakers Accuse Hollywood of 'Dehumanizing' Their People
Variety Staff
August 28, 2024
More Than 65 Palestinian Filmmakers, Including Hany Abu Assad, Elia
Suleiman and Farah Nabulsi, Sign Letter Accusing Hollywood of
‘Dehumanizing’ Palestinians (EXCLUSIVE)
[image: Hany Abu Assad, Elia Suleiman and Farah Nabulsi]
Getty

A group of almost 70 Palestinian filmmakers — including two-time Oscar
nominee Hany Abu Assad, acclaimed director Elia Suleiman
<https://variety.com/t/elia-suleiman/> and recent BAFTA winner Farah
Nabulsi — have signed a strongly-worded letter in which they accuse
Hollywood of “dehumanising” Palestinians on screen over decades, a factor
they assert has helped enable the ongoing devastation in Gaza
<https://variety.com/t/gaza/>.

The letter — also signed by the likes of multiple-award winners including
Michel Khleifi, Mai Masri, Najwa Najjar
<https://variety.com/t/najwa-najjar/> and the 22-strong list of directors
behind the compilation of shorts “From Ground Zero,” Palestine
<https://variety.com/t/palestine/>‘s current submission to the Oscars
— also expresses outrage and what it described as the “inhumanity and
racism shown by some in the Western entertainment industry towards our
people, even during this most difficult of times.”
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The letter marks the first collaborative initiative by Palestinian
filmmakers since the horrific events of Oct. 7, in which terror group Hamas
— which rules Gaza — killed more than 1,200 Israelis and took more than 250
hostage, and the ongoing retaliatory attacks on Gaza by Israel, which have
killed more than 40,000 Palestinians (according to the Palestinian Health
Authority) and led to a humanitarian crisis in the territory.
Popular on Variety

Despite its fierce criticism of Hollywood, the letter does thank the
National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for “standing up to
pressure and insisting on freedom of expression,” by refusing attempts to
disqualify a Gaza-focused documentary from the 2024 Emmy nominations.

The Peabody Award-winning “It’s Bisan From Gaza and I’m Still Alive,” by
Palestinian journalist, activist and filmmaker Bisan Owda and chronicling
her family’s plight as they flee bombardment of their home in by Israel, is
nominated for the News and Documentary Emmys for Outstanding Hard News
Feature Story: Short Form. However, there were calls by a U.S.-based
pro-Israel group for the nomination to be rescinded, with a letter signed
by the likes of Debra Messing, Sherry Lansing, Rick Rosen and Haim Saba
accusing Owda of having ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine (PFLP), a United States-designated terrorist group.

In response, NATAS president Adam Sharp said that Owda’s nomination would
not be rescinded, writing in a letter that the organisation had been
“unable to corroborate these reports” of Owda’s alleged involvement and
“found no grounds, to date, upon which to overturn the editorial judgment
of the independent journalists who reviewed the material.”

See the letter by the Palestinian filmmakers list of signatures below:

*We, Palestinian filmmakers, appreciate and thank the National Academy of
Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) for standing up to pressure and
insisting on freedom of expression by upholding Bisan Owda’s 2024 News and
Documentary Emmy nomination for the documentary, “It’s Bisan From Gaza and
I’m Still Alive.” *

*This film is narrated by the award-winning and inspiring 25-year-old
Palestinian journalist, Bisan Owda, who has risked her life to share with
the world reports and stories about the resilience, resistance and survival
of ordinary Palestinian families in the face of Israel’s ongoing,
livestreamed genocide in the occupied Gaza Strip. *

*Trying to censor Bisan’s voice is only the latest repressive attempt to
deny Palestinians the right to reclaim our narrative, share our history,
and in this case bring attention to the atrocities our people are facing in
the hopes that we can bring an end to them. We well understand the power of
image and cinema, and for far too long we have been outraged at the
inhumanity and racism shown by some in the Western entertainment industry
towards our people, even during this most difficult of times. *

*Through our films, we have tried to present alternative narratives,
depictions and images to reverse the stereotypical, dehumanizing
“worthless, disposable beings” image which enables the whitewashing and/or
justification of the crimes perpetrated for decades against Palestinians.
But why must we always put on our “boxing gloves” to defend our art against
ruthless censorship that targets us merely on the basis of our identity,
not our creativity? *

*We wholeheartedly welcomed the nomination of Bisan Owda’s film for an Emmy
as an indication that, after so many years of Israel’s apartheid and
settler-colonial rule over the Palestinian people, the relentless,
decades-old** dehumanization of Palestinians on small and big screens in
the U.S., in Hollywood in particular, was beginning to give way to a more
ethical stance. The censorship attempt against the film, though, was a
reality check of sorts. We must still contend with and fiercely challenge
the anti-Palestinian and generally anti-Arab racist propaganda that remains
all too prevalent in Western entertainment media.  *

*Although we are deeply concerned at how this dehumanization is a danger to
our very existence as Palestinians, we are cognizant of how it also puts
many racialized communities around the world, including in the West, at
risk of a similar fate as the “might makes right” credo prevails. *

*We call on our international colleagues in the film industry, visionaries
for the kind of world we would like to live in, to speak out against this
genocide and the erasure, racism and censorship that enable it; to do
everything humanly possible to stop and end complicity with this
unspeakable horror; and to stand against working with production companies
that are deeply complicit in dehumanizing Palestinians, or whitewashing and
justifying Israel’s crimes against us. *

*This has to stop. Now.*

Signed:

   1. Michel Khleifi
   2. Mai Masri
   3. Hany Abu Assad
   4. Najwa Najjar
   5. Elia Suleiman
   6. Rashid Masharawi
   7. Farah Nabulsi
   8. Mohammad Bakri
   9. Maha Haj
   10. Mahdi Fleifel
   11. Raed Andoni
   12. Kamal Aljafari
   13. Saleh Bakri
   14. Mohanad Yaqubi
   15. Tarzan Nasser
   16. Arab Nasser
   17. Ossama Bawardi
   18. Rakan Mayasi
   19. Khadija Habashneh
   20. Leila Sansour
   21. Khaled Jarrar
   22. Rula Nasser
   23. May Odeh
   24. Adam Bakri
   25. Iyad Alasttal
   26. Amer Shomali
   27. Carol Mansour
   28. Muna Khalidi
   29. Mohamed Jabaly
   30. Salim abu Jabal
   31. Suha Arraf
   32. Firas Khoury
   33. Randa Nassar
   34. Yasmine Al Massri
   35. Wisam Al Jafari
   36. Ismael El Habbash
   37. Muayad Alayan
   38. Sawsan Asfari
   39. Kamel el Basha
   40. Rozeen Bisharat
   41. Nadia Eliewat
   42. Ward Kayyal
   43. Maryse Gargour
   44. Amer Hlehel
   45. Ziad Bakri
   46. Aws Al-Banna*
   47. Ahmed Al-Danf*
   48. Basil Al-Maqousi*
   49. Mustafa Al-Nabih*
   50. Muhammad Alshareef*
   51. Ala’a Ayob*
   52. Bashar Al-Balbeisi*
   53. Alaa Damo*
   54. Hana Awad*
   55. Ahmad Hassouna*
   56. Mustafa Kallab*
   57. Kareem Satoum*
   58. Mahdi Karirah*
   59. Rabab Khamees*
   60. Khamees Masharawi*
   61. Wissam Moussa*
   62. Tamer Najm*
   63. Nidaa Abu Hasna*
   64. Nidal Damo*
   65. Reema Mahmoud*
   66. E’temad Weshah*
   67. Islam Al Zrieai*
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