In response to growing demand from film workers, as well as BDS activists globally, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) lays out below how BDS guidelines apply to complicit Israeli films (and TV productions)*.
Since the start of Israel’s ongoing genocide against 2.3M Palestinians in Gaza, PACBI, a founding member of the largest Palestinian coalition leading the global BDS movement, has received many enquiries regarding Israeli films. We hope that this article can help address these questions. We encourage programmers, producers, distributors and all others to carefully research the complicity of Israeli films, read this article and contact us if and when they encounter grey areas.
More than 5,000 international film workers, including leading Hollywood figures, have pledged to refuse to work with complicit Israeli film companies and institutions. A growing number of international film festivals and institutes have endorsed the cultural boycott of Israel, including IDFA, the world’s biggest documentary festival, and BlackStar, sometimes known as the ‘Black Sundance’. We deeply appreciate this meaningful solidarity! PACBI presents this article as an additional reference.
* Hereafter, by “films”, we mean features, documentaries, shorts and all other films, as well as TV productions. So we’re just using “films” as shorthand for all film and TV products.
The majority of Israeli films today are funded and produced under conditions of irrefutable complicity in whitewashing or justifying Israel’s regime of oppression against the Palestinian people. This complicity includes accepting funding with political conditions attached, or from deeply complicit Israeli entities that profit from operating in illegal settlements or from apartheid. The vast majority of Israeli production companies have never taken meaningful steps to address their own persistent culpability, even in the context of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
However, the two conditions for Israeli cultural institutions–including film and TV production companies, foundations, distributors and others–to be exempted from boycott are clear, and are copied below. PACBI upholds the universal right to freedom of expression and has rooted these conditions in international law. They were partly inspired by the struggle against apartheid in South Africa.
As the BDS guidelines for the international cultural boycott of Israel say:
"To end their collusion in Israel’s regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid and become non-boycottable, Israeli cultural institutions must fulfill two basic conditions:
a. Publicly recognize the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people as enshrined in international law (including the three basic rights in the 2005 BDS Call) and
b. End all forms of complicity in violating Palestinian rights as stipulated in international law, including discriminatory policies and practices as well as diverse roles in whitewashing or justifying Israel’s violations of international law and Palestinian human rights."
These conditions will be referenced below, so please keep them in mind.
Whatever personal positions the filmmakers may express or later develop in support of Palestinian rights, while these positions may be welcomed, if their films were made under conditions of complicity in whitewashing oppression, this cannot be reversed. The films will remain boycottable according to BDS guidelines. The personal views of the filmmaker are, in any case, not strictly relevant to the question at hand. BDS, including PACBI, targets complicit institutions, not individuals based on their identity or beliefs [†].
The content of any cultural product, including films, is not strictly relevant in determining whether it is boycottable according to BDS guidelines [‡]. This factor is for film workers to take into account, primarily. Again, PACBI subscribes to internationally-accepted definitions of freedom of expression. That said, any clearly propagandistic film from any state would surely be rejected by progressive festivals and others on common sense grounds alone. PACBI recognizes and understands such common sense boycotts.
While some international film and television companies and institutions may claim to base their programming decisions entirely on artistic merit, in reality this is rarely—if ever—the case. The conditions of funding and ethical production of a particular product cannot be ignored in any comprehensive assessment. Where these conditions may constitute complicity in whitewashing genocide, apartheid and military occupation, the truly ethically consistent approach is to insist on making factual enquiries into this complicity.
† In the context of normalization, this question may be more nuanced (see part 8).
‡ As above.
BDS guidelines (emphasis added):
"As a general overriding rule, Israeli cultural institutions, unless proven otherwise, are complicit in maintaining the Israeli occupation and denial of basic Palestinian rights, whether through their silence or actual involvement in justifying, whitewashing or otherwise deliberately diverting attention from Israel’s violations of international law and human rights. Accordingly, these institutions, all their products, and all the activities they sponsor or support must be boycotted by cultural organizations and cultural workers worldwide."
In other words, films produced or co-produced by a complicit Israeli production company are boycottable according to BDS guidelines. To take a hypothetical case: where an individual Israeli director makes a film through their own production company, or another Israeli production company, and if this production company has not met the two conditions above, then this film is complicit as a result, since it violates BDS guidelines. It should be boycotted.
"Israeli cultural products that receive state funding as part of the individual cultural worker’s entitlement as a tax-paying citizen, without her/him being bound to serve the state’s political and propaganda interests, are not boycottable [on this basis alone]. Accepting such political strings, on the other hand, would clearly turn the cultural product into a form of complicity, by contributing to Israel’s efforts to whitewash or obscure its colonial and apartheid reality, and would render it boycottable as a result."
The Rabinovich Foundation, Israel's largest film fund, did indeed put such political conditions on all its funding between at least 2017-2023. You can read more about that here and here. Therefore, all Rabinovich-funded films made during this period are boycottable on this basis according to PACBI guidelines. Another fund, the New Fund for Cinema and Television (NFCT), similarly added political conditions attached to funding between at least 2022-23 and therefore all its films between this period are boycottable on this basis.
The other three main Israeli public/state film funds are the Israel Film Fund, Gesher Multicultural Film Fund, and Makor Foundation for Israeli Film and Television. All films made with the support of these three public/state funds (as well as films funded by Rabinovich or the NFCT outside of the period when political conditions were explicitly attached to funding) must be assessed on a case-by-case basis, with regards to all the other criteria listed in this article.
The Israeli National Lottery (Mifal HaPais) often funds films, too, and is a public entity. However, it is not funded by taxes, and entering the lottery is voluntary, unlike taxes. Therefore, PACBI cannot reasonably consider its funds a taxpayer entitlement. With this in mind, films funded by the Israeli National Lottery—a deeply complicit entity—are boycottable according to BDS guidelines.
Important additional context here is the well-documented fact that Israeli filmmakers systematically self-censor, omitting any meaningful critique of Israel’s system of oppression, in order to access public/state funds–regardless of whether political conditions are explicitly attached or not. Such self-censorship clearly constitutes complicity in whitewashing Israel’s oppression against Palestinians, though it is hard to prove in specific cases. PACBI encourages thorough inquiry of all aspects of complicity.
Such complicit Israeli private entities include TV broadcasters Hot (Hot Telecommunication Systems Ltd.) and yes. (Bezeq; formerly D.B.S. Satellite Services Ltd.). These companies are named in the UN’s database of companies profiting from Israel’s illegal settlements, which constitute a war crime. Any films funded, produced or otherwise created by any such complicit Israeli private entity and their subsidiaries are themselves complicit and should be boycotted according to BDS guidelines.
It should be noted here that some Israeli films are made with a mixture of public and private funds and therefore must be carefully assessed according to all the criteria in this article.
PACBI draws a distinction between funded versus commissioned products. The previous two points have dealt with projects that received funding, for example, through an application process. This point concerns commissioned products.
BDS guidelines state:
“A cultural PRODUCT is boycottable if it is commissioned by an official Israeli body or non-Israeli institution that serves Brand Israel or similar propaganda purposes … we consider all non-Israeli (e.g., international, Palestinian) cultural products that are funded by official Israeli bodies or international ‘brand Israel’ organizations to be commissioned and to be politically motivated, therefore being subject to boycott.”
Films that are commissioned by genocidal Israel or its lobby groups are inherently politically motivated and therefore boycottable. This is distinct from being funded or produced by public or private entities, which is discussed in parts 3 and 4 above.
Non-Israeli films that are funded by Israel or its lobby groups are also inherently politically motivated. We consider these to be no different than commissioned products, and therefore boycottable. By non-Israeli, we do not mean here films made by Indigenous Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, for whom there are context-sensitive guidelines.
“Cultural activities, projects, events and products involving Palestinians and/or other Arabs on one side and Israelis on the other (whether bi- or multi- lateral) that are based on the false premise of symmetry/parity between the oppressors and the oppressed or that assume that both colonizers and colonized are equally responsible for the ‘conflict’ are intellectually dishonest and morally reprehensible forms of normalization that ought to be boycotted.”
This applies to any film, Israeli or otherwise (including those that have Israeli and Palestinian cast and crew members) that violates the BDS movement’s anti-normalization guidelines. Resisting normalization is an essential component of the struggle for Palestinian liberation in the wider context of the Arab region. For more, please see the BDS Movement’s Anti-Normalization Guidelines Explained.
A few Israeli filmmakers and actors, among other artists, have eagerly taken the mantle of cultural ambassador for Israel. These include Gal Gadot, who has organized screenings of genocide-justifying propaganda produced by the Israeli military, and Shira Haas, who performed the voiceover for racist, genocidal Israeli government propaganda. Accordingly, since they are acting as ambassadors of genocide and apartheid, rather than merely individuals, their films, Israeli or otherwise, are boycottable under BDS’s institutional criteria. PACBI has a high bar for determining whether or not a particular individual is effectively a cultural ambassador for apartheid Israel. Contact us if unsure.
“A cultural EVENT/ACTIVITY is boycottable if it is partially or fully sponsored by an official Israeli body or a complicit institution ... a public event/activity carried out under the sponsorship/aegis of or in affiliation with an official Israeli body or a complicit institution constitutes complicity and therefore is deserving of boycott. The same may apply to support or sponsorship from non-Israeli institutions that serve Israel’s branding/propaganda purposes.”
If the Israeli embassy, Israel lobby groups or complicit Israeli institutions are sponsoring or otherwise supporting a film screening, then that screening is boycottable, regardless of whether the film itself is boycottable under BDS guidelines.
PACBI distinguishes mere affiliation from representation. To take a hypothetical example: if the Chair of the complicit Israeli Documentary Filmmakers Forum is speaking at a panel during an international film festival, then this panel within the film festival should be cancelled, and boycotted if not, because the individual is representing a complicit Israeli institution and therefore falls under the institutional criteria of the BDS movement. Similarly, if the head of an Israeli public film foundation is representing the institution at an international film event, PACBI calls for boycotting this event. On the other hand, merely being affiliated with a complicit Israeli institution is not sufficient grounds for PACBI to call for boycotting an event.
In 2024, PACBI issued a position regarding suspected Israeli war criminals. This holds relevance for determining whether to programme or platform an Israeli film or filmmaker. PACBI calls for publicly holding to account international institutions that fail to conduct due diligence on suspected Israeli war criminals for condoning violations of international law.
“Given the gravity of Israel’s Gaza genocide, in particular, and the near consensus support for it among Jewish Israelis, and given Israel’s decades of perpetrating war crimes and crimes against humanity against Indigenous Palestinians, Israeli academics, scientists, programmers, college students, artists, writers, athletes, among others, who fall under any of the following categories must be investigated and, if warranted, prosecuted by all States – as part of those States’ legal obligation to, inter alia, prevent genocide and ensure accountability for grave breaches of international humanitarian law:
- Anyone who has served since 7 October 2023 in the Israeli military (including logistical and intelligence units).
- Anyone who is reasonably suspected of aiding, assisting, or conspiring in the commission of war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide anytime, whether during military service or not.
- Anyone who is reasonably suspected of involvement in public incitement to commit war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide anytime, whether during military service or not.
Also, any Israeli who resides or works in, and any Israeli or international who provides material support to, an illegal Israeli colonial settlement in the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT), including East Jerusalem, or in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, is knowingly participating in a war crime and must therefore be held accountable …
Accordingly, any entity (i.e. public or private) that engages in relations with such Israelis without conducting an appropriate, meaningful and effective due diligence review aimed at ensuring that its engagement does nothing to maintain, expand, or recognize the settlements and Israel’s continued unlawful presence in the OPT or other international crimes must be held publicly accountable for condoning and supporting violations of international law (including war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide) and for failing to meet its own obligations not to recognise or in any way assist such violations.”