By Marcus Wratten

Copyright thepinknews

More than 1,300 film and TV professionals, including Ayo Edebiri and Olivia Coleman, have signed an open letter pledging to boycott Israeli film institutions in response to the “carnage” occurring in Gaza.

The list of signatories includes numerous award-winning Hollywood titans, who have declared that they will refuse to work with film companies that are “implicated in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people”.

Alongside Ayo Edebiri and Olivia Coleman, the list of names includes The History of Sound star Josh O’Connor, Poor Things actress Emma Stone, The White Lotus actress Aimee Lou Wood, and The Room Next Door’s Tilda Swinton.

Queer stars including And Just Like That… star Cynthia Nixon, Hacks actress Hannah Einbinder, Fire Island’s Joel Kim Booster, Pose’s Indya Moore, Harry Potter’s Miriam Margolyes and Killers of the Flower Moon’s Lily Gladstone have also signed the open letter.

Artists who have signed the pledge will not “screen films, appear at or otherwise work with” Israeli film institutions such as festivals, broadcasters or production companies that are “complicit in” or “justify genocide”, nor those that partner with the Israeli government.

The open letter was published on 8 September by campaign group Film Workers for Palestine, which said it was answering calls by Palestinian filmmakers “to refuse silence, racism, and dehumanization, as well as to ‘do everything humanly possible’ to end complicity in their oppression”.

Film Workers for Palestine also wrote that it was inspired by Filmmakers United Against Apartheid, a group of artists founded in 1987, which declined to have their films screened in apartheid South Africa.

“As filmmakers, actors, film industry workers, and institutions, we recognize the power of cinema to shape perceptions. 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 pledge begins.

“The world’s highest court, the International Court of Justice, has ruled that there is a plausible risk of genocide in Gaza, and that Israel’s occupation and apartheid against Palestinians are unlawful.

“Standing for equality, justice, and freedom for all people is a profound moral duty that none of us can ignore. So too, we must speak out now against the harm done to the Palestinian people.”

In a separate press release, the group added: “Despite operating in Israel’s system of apartheid, and therefore benefiting from it, the vast majority of Israeli film production and distribution companies, sales agents, cinemas and other film institutions have never endorsed the full, internationally-recognized rights of the Palestinian people.”

Other actors and filmmakers to sign the pledge include Poor Things director Yorgos Lanthimos, Hard Truth filmmaker Mike Leigh, 13 Going On 30’s Mark Ruffalo, Harry Potter actor Paapa Essiedu, Sound of Metal’s Riz Ahmed, Scream’s Melissa Barrera, Succession actor Brian Cox, and Desperate Housewives star Marcia Cross.

Hannah Einbinder, who is Jewish American, said that what she has seen happening in Gaza “shocks the conscience”.

“As a Jewish American citizen whose tax dollars directly fund Israel’s assault on Gaza, I feel we must do everything in our power to end the genocide,” she said, per Variety. “At this pivotal moment, given the failure of our leaders, artists have to step up and refuse complicity.”

Other groups of artists, including authors and musicians, have made similar declarations in a bid to stop the atrocities in Gaza.

Last year, more than 1,000 authors including Sally Rooney pledged not to work with publishers or festivals “complicit in violating Palestinian rights”, while musicians including Cat Burns, Damon Albarn, Paloma Faith, Rina Sawayama and PinkPantheress will perform at benefit concert Together for Palestine in London on 17 September.

Last week, the BBC reported that the world-leading International Association of Genocide Scholars had determined that Israel’s military action in Gaza met the legal definition of a genocide, as laid out by the UN convention.

In August, a UN-backed group tracking world hunger also declared that Gaza is experiencing a famine.

Conversely, on 9 September, the UK government concluded that Israel is not committing genocide in the Palestinian territory, as it deemed that Israel is not “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”.