More than 1,200 filmmakers, actors and industry professionals, including prominent Hollywood figures like Olivia Colman, Ava DuVernay and Tilda Swinton, have signed a pledge not to work with certain Israeli film institutions.

 

The pledge was made in an open letter published by Film Workers for Palestine – a group that campaigns for the end of the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip – on Monday.

 

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“In this urgent moment of crisis, where many of our governments are enabling the carnage in Gaza, we must do everything we can to address complicity in that unrelenting horror,” the letter read.

 

The signatories, which also include director Adam McKay, actor Mark Ruffalo and actress Ayo Edebiri, pledged not to screen films, appear at, or otherwise work with, Israeli cinemas, broadcasters and production companies that “are implicated in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people”.

 

The group said it had been inspired by Filmmakers United Against Apartheid, a movement that in the 1980s worked to end apartheid in South Africa.

 

Last month, a group of academic experts known as the International Association of Genocide Scholars declared that Israel’s actions in Gaza had met the legal definition of genocide. According to Gaza health officials, more than 60,000 Palestinians have so far been killed by Israeli occupational forces.

 

Film Workers for Palestine said its pledge did not prohibit working with Israeli individuals. “The call is for film workers to refuse to work with Israeli institutions that are complicit in Israel’s human rights abuses against the Palestinian people,” it said on its website. “This refusal takes aim at institutional complicity, not identity.”

 

The organisation said that while a few Israeli film entities “are not complicit”, a vast majority of the country’s “film production and distribution companies, sales agents, cinemas and other film institutions have never endorsed the full, internationally recognised rights of the Palestinian people”.

 

The group added that Israel’s major film festivals, including the Jerusalem Film Festival, continue to partner with the Israeli government.

 

Other signatories of the pledge include actress Cynthia Nixon, and Yorgos Lanthimos, the director of the upcoming film “Bugonia”. Javier Bardem, Susan Sarandon and Indya Moore partnered with Film Workers for Palestine on Instagram to share a post explaining the pledge.

 

The pledge comes after a recent pro-Palestinian demonstration at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival drew thousands of participants.

 

The protest gained momentum after Venice4Palestine, a group of Italian and international film professionals, released an open letter demanding that the festival condemned the destruction and suffering caused by Israel’s atrocities in Gaza.