EXCLUSIVE: The Palestinian producer behind The Sea, Israel’s contender for Best International Feature at the Oscars, has argued that it is misguided for Hollywood luminaries to boycott filmmakers in the country.
Baher Agbariya, an Academy Award-nominated producer based in Haifa, said he agreed with the political objectives of those boycotting Israel, but implored the 5,000 signatories — including Emma Stone and Joaquin Phoenix — to engage in conversations with local filmmakers rather than blanket bans.
Film Workers for Palestine (FWP), the organization behind the boycott, has vowed to shun “festivals, cinemas, broadcasters and production companies” that are “implicated in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people.” Its intervention came days before a United Nations commission of inquiry concluded that Israel had committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Israel rejected the “distorted and false” report.
Speaking to Deadline amid growing hope of a ceasefire deal in Gaza, Agbariya is the latest industry figure to raise concerns about the FWP campaign following criticism from Paramount and the Creative Community for Peace, a non-profit that counters anti-Israel sentiment in the entertainment industry.
In written responses to Deadline questions, FWP defended the boycott while stressing that it stands against artistic censorship. The campaign group also expanded on its objectives and disclosed more about the intended targets of the boycott.
Agbariya described the campaign as “collective punishment” that could harm stories that illuminate the plight of Palestinians amid the horrors in Gaza. Stories like The Sea, which spotlights a 12-year-old boy from the West Bank, who defies Israeli authorities in an audacious effort to fulfil his dream of seeing the ocean.
The feature was automatically propelled into Oscar contention after winning big at the Ophirs, Israel’s flagship film awards, though it does not enjoy the blessing of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. Ophir winners lined up to denounce Israel’s actions in Gaza, enraging Israeli culture minister Miki Zohar, who said the ceremony “spits in the faces of our heroic soldiers” and threatened to pull its state funding.
Despite The Sea becoming a symbol of resistance, the Shai Carmeli-Pollak-directed film appears to collide with the boycott in at least three ways. Producer Majdal Films received financing from two state-backed funding pots, meaning the company is likely “implicated” under the FWP definition. The Sea premiered at the Jerusalem Film Festival, which FWP has explicitly blacklisted. The Sea won three awards at the Ophirs, another likely target of the boycott, despite its clash with ministers last month.
“I stand against the war in Gaza and genocide, but I think [the boycott] is wrong. These points need to be discussed to see when it’s right and when it’s wrong,” said Agbariya, who was a line-producer on Hany Abu Assad’s Oscar-nominated 2013 Palestinian film Omar. “I believe this story [The Sea] should cross the ocean and be seen everywhere.”
Boycott Questions Answered
Deadline asked FWP a series of questions about the boycott’s objectives, with the organization providing written answers through an intermediary at The Britain Palestine Media Centre, which works to connect journalists with Palestinians.
FWP first organized at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2024. Under its banner, protesters marched through Main Street demanding a ceasefire following Israel’s relentless bombing of Gaza after Hamas killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages on October 7, 2023.
The boycott has been FWP’s noisiest campaign to date, attracting the support of stars, including Andrew Garfield, Omar Sy, and Olivia Colman. It is down to these individuals to observe the pledge, with signatories encouraged to make clear their position as part of employment offers, and consider carefully where their work is distributed.
For the first time, FWP acknowledged that the boycott does not apply to non-Israeli organizations linked to companies in the Jewish state.
Under this rubric, Faraway Road Productions, the Israeli producer of hit Netflix series Fauda, would likely be considered a blacklist target by FWP (co-founder Avi Issacharoff described Hacks star Hannah Einbinder as a “fool” for her “free Palestine” speech at the Emmys), but the company’s U.S. owner, Candle Media, would not be subject to the same action. The boycott also does not apply to individuals.
FWP does, however, continue to apply pressure on international companies to “end their complicity with Israeli institutions” through other campaigns. The group spearheaded the backlash against Mubi after it accepted investment from Sequoia Capital, which has a stake in Kela, an Israeli military tech startup.
FWP told Deadline that Israeli organizations can break free from the boycott by severing government ties and publicly stating that they support “the full rights of the Palestinian people under international law, including the right of return.” The latter clause — the principle that Palestinian refugees and their descendants have a right to return to land that became Israel — goes further than the boycott literature on the FWP website.
The right of return is a core belief of Omar Barghouti, the activist known for co-founding the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, which has been campaigning against Israeli cultural institutions since 2005. Barghouti does not support a two-state solution for peace and has said he can never accept a Jewish state, or any other kind of “exclusionary” state, in Palestine.
FWP Denies Links To BDS Movement
In a statement to Deadline, FWP denied any links to the BDS movement. “FWP is a network of thousands of individual film workers, including Palestinians, that is entirely independent of any other organization,” the group said. BDS social media accounts have amplified the FWP boycott, however. Furthermore, the blacklisted Israeli film institutions named by FWP, such as the Jerusalem Film Festival, were all targeted by BDS before October 7.
Ari Ingel, executive director of the Creative Community For Peace, which organized a petition of 1,200 Jewish industry figures condemning the boycott, argued that the FWP boycott borrows from the same playbook as the BDS movement. “This is a litmus test that has been placed upon the Israeli film and TV industry that has not been placed upon any other film and TV industry in the world,” he said, adding that this “double standard” is what provokes allegations of antisemitism.
The Creative Community For Peace petition, signed by the likes of Liev Schreiber and Shari Redstone, said the FWP boycott was an act of “censorship” and “erasure of art.” Paramount said silencing Israelifilmmakers “does not promote better understanding or advance the cause of peace.”
FWP said: “Our movement is anti-racist and stands against oppression in all its forms. Our signatories include many Jewish film workers, including actors and directors … As film workers, we reject censorship and insist upon freedom of expression as a universal principle.”
The FWP boycott and Creative Community For Peace petition have been signed by close colleagues, demonstrating how the conflict has polarized opinion in Hollywood. For example, Elliot Page put his name to the FWP campaign, while the actor’s agent, UTA’s Jacob Fenton, signed the Creative Community For Peace letter.
Agbariya, producer of The Sea, summed up his feelings like this: “Things work better when you don’t have collective punishment … I know pro-Israeli activists, I don’t boycott them. I want to talk to them.”
FWP Statement
“We are proud to respond to the call of Palestinian society, including filmmakers, who are ‘outraged at the inhumanity and racism shown by some in the Western entertainment industry towards our people, even during this most difficult of times.’
“Our unshakeable belief is that centering and heeding the voice of oppressed peoples and communities is an essential moral duty that none of us can ignore. For decades, Palestinians have been calling on the world, including us as film workers, to do no harm to their struggle for freedom, justice and equality.
“Our pledge refuses unethical cooperation with complicit Israeli institutions that whitewash or justify genocide and apartheid. Such refusals are a time-honored nonviolent tactic – most pertinently for us, Filmmakers United Against Apartheid used them with regards to apartheid South Africa in 1987.
“On other, separate campaigns, as is very evident on our social media and other public platforms, Film Workers for Palestine has proudly partnered with various groups, including Jewish Voice for Peace, the Movement for Black Lives, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), and Entertainment Labor for Palestine, among others.
“We are proud of our own impact as a relatively small but specialized part of global movements for justice and collective liberation. We encourage all our supporters to participate in broad, strategic coalitions to help build the people power we need in this urgent moment.”