Recommendations of the Editorial team
What was once intended as a courageous political intervention now seems like a well-rehearsed ritual: As soon as an awards ceremony with an international gala is scheduled for the Berlinale, the pro-Palestinian statement apparently becomes part of the regular program. The speeches differ in detail, but not in the basic pattern: serious accusations, moral accusations, great applause from parts of the audience – and just as reliable indignation.
Alkhatib escalates
This year, the Syrian-Palestinian director Abdallah Alkhatib went one better. He appeared for his acceptance speech for the Berlinale honor with a keffiyeh and the country’s flag and predicted that one day there would be a wonderful film festival in Gaza.
Then came a blatant threat in the style of the Irish terrorist organization IRA: “We will remember everyone who stood with us and we will remember everyone who was against us.” Followed by the exclamation: “A free Palestine from now until the end of the world.” The federal government also got its fat – for supporting genocide.
The political reactions
Federal Environment Minister Carsten Schneider then left the room with sulfur fumes. A gesture that Israel’s ambassador Ron Prosor just as formulaically praised as “moral clarity.”
Minister of State for Culture Weimer was also outraged afterwards: “Jury work and award ceremonies were misused for political destruction and many artists were deprived of their unique moment of appreciation for their work.”
The fronts are familiar and hardened, the roles have long been assigned.
When ritual replaces art
Of course, it is legitimate – indeed necessary – to address political conflicts at cultural events. The Berlinale has always sold itself as a political festival. But if every acceptance speech becomes a stage for the same slogans, the effect wears off. Anyone who speaks in general terms of “genocide” and accuses the federal government of complicity is relying on prepotent escalation instead of differentiation. This generates headlines – but hardly any insight is gained.
The dramaturgy now follows a familiar sequence: cloth-waving folklore, confessional formula (“Free Palestine”), applause and boos, followed by political reactions. What is missing is the willingness for complexity, which festival director Tricia Tuttle and jury president Wim Wenders have called for in very different statements.
But moral self-assurance is apparently also the top priority for smarter artists – even for Tilda Swinton, who in this case is in common with the boycott group BDS, which is massively supported by Pink Floyd-Dunkelmann.
More than outrage from the warm film studio
Precisely because the war in Gaza is a real, cruel event, it deserves more than outrage from the warm film studio. Art can open up spaces, show ambivalences, and endure contradictions. However, if it becomes a predictable platform for the same accusations over and over again, the audience and politicians become dulled as recipients.
This doesn’t help the tormented people in Gaza much. Despite all the institutionalized or real excitement in the aftermath of such scandals, one gets the impression that the concerns of the From The River To The Sea supporters have long since lost their power in the pop culture segment.
It sounds a little pastoral, but political art begins where the ritual ends. Or as The Smiths once sang with deliberate ambiguous meaning: “That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore.”
