Author Arundhati Roy has withdrawn from the Berlin International Film Festival after its jury president said film-makers should stay out of politics, according to a statement issued by Roy on Friday.
The festival, also known as the Berlinale, opened on Thursday with a press conference led by German film-maker Wim Wenders, who heads this year’s competition jury. Responding to a question about whether films can effect political change amid the conflict in Gaza, Wenders said that while “movies can change the world”, they do so “not in a political way”.
He added that film-makers “have to stay out of politics” and described cinema as a “counterweight” to politics rather than part of it.
Roy, who had been scheduled to attend a screening of her 1989 film In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones in the festival’s Classics section, called the remarks “unconscionable”.
“To hear them say that art should not be political is jaw-dropping,” Roy said in her statement, adding that such comments risked shutting down discussion “about a crime against humanity even as it unfolds before us in real time”.
The Booker Prize-winning author said she had been “profoundly disturbed” by positions taken by the German government and some cultural institutions on Palestine, but added that she had previously received solidarity from German audiences when expressing her views.
This year’s Berlinale jury includes American director-producer Reinaldo Marcus Green, Japanese film-maker Hikari, Nepalese director Min Bahadur Bham, South Korean actor Bae Doona, Indian director-producer Shivendra Singh Dungarpur and Polish producer Ewa Puszczyńska.
During Thursday’s press conference, jury members were also asked about Germany’s support for Israel. Puszczyńska described the question as “complicated” and “a bit unfair”, saying the jury’s role was to encourage audiences to think, not to determine political positions.
Roy, who was recently longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction for her memoir Mother Mary Comes to Me, reiterated her view that events in Gaza amount to genocide and criticised governments she said were complicit.
“If the greatest film-makers and artists of our time cannot stand up and say so, they should know that history will judge them,” she said.