The controversy that erupted over director Jonathan Glazer’s acceptance speech on March 10 for Best International Feature for his film “Zone of Interest” is personal for me. His concise remarks about his film, which concerns the family life of the commandant of Auschwitz, were as follows:
“All our choices were made to reflect and confront us in the present, not to say look what they did then, but rather look what we do now. Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst. It’s shaped all of our past and present. Right now, we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people. Whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist?”
Reaction was swift. Institutional Jewish leaders from the Anti-Defamation League’s Jonathan Greenblatt to Rabbi Shmuley Boteach to the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Richard Trank, an Oscar winner himself, attacked Glazer for saying that his film is not simply a historical re-creation. Instead, Glazer said that he means his film to be relevant for today. Critics don’t like that he had something provocative to say about the contemporary uses of Holocaust memory.
The fact that he also used the word “occupation” and did not mention Hamas’ role triggering the current war ignited hysteria in some segments of the Jewish community. Glazer was accused of minimizing the Holocaust and of equating Israeli Jews to Nazis. An adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed Glazer is a “self-hating Jew.” A group of film industry professionals signed an open letter accusing Glazer of giving credence to a modern blood libel.
As founding director of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, I often faced vitriolic attacks like these when we screened films about Israelis and Palestinians.
I often faced vitriolic attacks like these when we screened films about Israelis and Palestinians.
During my tenure at the SFJFF, none was more controversial than the 1988 screening of British director Mira Hamermesh’s documentary film “Talking with the Enemy,” followed by speaker Mubarak Awad, a West Bank Palestinian activist espousing Gandhian nonviolent resistance as a means to challenge Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands.
The event was a watershed because the Jewish establishment across the whole country at that time enforced a strict boycott against inviting Palestinians as speakers at events funded by Jewish federations. Indeed, the local Federation demanded we cancel the program. When we refused, the Federation cut our funding. But the sold-out audience gave the film and speaker a standing ovation, and the film festival has continued to bring audiences important Israeli and Palestinian films and speakers.
In 2009, after I had left the festival, it faced an even worse outpouring of rage from some Jews for screening a documentary film about the nonviolent activist Rachel Corrie, who was killed by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza as she tried to protect Palestinian homes from demolition.
Director Simone Bitton’s film “Rachel” and the ensuing controversy at the festival became the subject of the documentary “Between Two Worlds: The Jewish Culture Wars,” which I co-produced and directed with my husband, Alan Snitow. As we toured the country with the film, we encountered attacks from many who went ballistic when we used the word “occupation” in our presentations.
Many Jewish film festivals refused to show the film. Sadly, the possibilities for respectful debate inside the American Jewish community have only diminished since Netanyahu’s most extreme government came to power, since the Hamas attack on Oct. 7 and since Israel’s horrific war on Gaza followed.
Oscars night seems on the surface to be a time for film industry self-congratulation and popular entertainment, but those of us in the business know the stakes for this art form are high.
Another Oscar winner this year, Mstyslav Chernov, concluded his acceptance speech for “20 Days in Mariupol” with these words: “Cinema forms memory and memories form history.”
Perhaps this is why the battles over the meaning of “never again” are so fierce. Filmmakers and critics, festival directors and distributors, as well as the Academy — of which I am a voting member — all have responsibilities and obligations to their subjects and to their audiences. Among them are respecting the voice of the maker, upholding free speech and standing for fairness. Glazer’s remarkable film and his Oscars statement deserve contemplation and appreciation, not political grandstanding and disrespect.