Fallout From the Berlin Film Festival

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At this year’s Berlin Film Festival, known as the Berlinale, one after another, Arab prizewinners spoke not about films but about Gaza and Israel’s “genocide.” I discussed this yesterday here. Lebanese director Marie-Rose Osta, for example, received an award for her short film Someday a Child, about an 11-year-old boy living with his uncle in a Lebanese village. Osta, clutching her statuette, told the audience that Israeli bombs were killing children in Lebanon and Gaza. “In reality,” she said, “children in Gaza, in all of Palestine, and in my Lebanon, do not have superpowers to protect them from Israeli bombs […] No child should need superpowers to survive a genocide empowered by veto powers and the collapse of international law.” Enthusiastic applause.

More on this year’s Berlinale can be found here: “Berlin Film Festival director’s future in spotlight after Gaza furore,” Reuters, February 26, 2026:

Germany’s government convened an emergency meeting of the organizers of the Berlin Film Festival on Thursday, saying it wanted to discuss the event’s “direction” after debate and protests over Gaza dominated the program.

The Bild newspaper reported on Wednesday that the government’s Commissioner for Culture and Media, Wolfram Weimer, was planning to sack festival director Tricia Tuttle, citing sources close to the festival’s organizers, though the event’s overseeing body denied it.

In reaction to the report, the winner of this year’s main prize, Turkish‑German director Ilker Catak, said he would boycott the event if Tuttle went, and hundreds of signatories, including British actor Tilda Swinton and German director Tom Tykwer, sent an open letter backing her.

The furore caps a politically charged festival that has pitted anger over Israel’s actions in Gaza and concerns over free speech against historical sensitivities in Germany. Berlin is one of Israel’s staunchest supporters, a stance born out of guilt for the Nazi Holocaust, a policy known as the “Staatsraison.”

Abdallah al-Khatib, a Palestinian-Syrian, was the winner of the Berlinale Perspectives section for his drama Chronicles of a Siege — the “siege” in question taking place in an unnamed city during the Syrian civil war, but instead of talking about his film, al-Khatib accused the current German government of being a “partner in the genocide in Gaza by Israel,” and declared menacingly that “the long awaited day is coming, and when people ask you what happened, tell them: Palestine remembers. We will remember everyone who stood with us, and we will remember everyone who stood against us, against our right to live with dignity, or who choose silence or choose to be silent.” And so it went, speaker after speaker denouncing Israel for its “genocide.”

The Berlinale’s director did nothing to prevent participants from turning their acceptance of awards into diatribes against the Jewish state. She might, after all, have stepped in after a few of these virtue-signaling performances to remind everyone that this was a film festival, and not a Hamas rally. At the end of all this, that director, the American Tricia Tuttle, was happy to pose for a photograph with Abdallah Al-Khatib, nicely wrapped in a keffiyeh, along with his entire production team, and a PLO flag.

This was the last straw for the German Minister of Culture Wolfram Weimer, who declared that Tuttle’s continuing tenure as the Berlinale’s director was now “untenable,” and she was promptly let go.

After hearing that Tuttle was about to be fired, but before it actually took place, the winner of this year’s prize for best picture, the Golden Bear, “Turkish-German director Ilker Catak, said he would boycott the event if Tuttle went, and hundreds of signatories, including British actress Tilda Swinton and German director Tom Tykwer, sent an open letter backing her.”

But guess what. Weimer stood firm, and out she went, Ms. Tricia Tuttle, never to darken the door again of the Berlinale. There may be a job opening up for her at the Doha Film Festival, if the Qataris ever get around to starting one. As for the Germans, their last best word on the contretemps at the Berlinale belongs to the Mayor of Berlin, Kai Wegner who published an article in Bild: “Those who present themselves here as pro-Palestinian activists are not concerned with human rights. They are not interested in dialogue, peace, or nuanced criticism. They are solely concerned with hatred of Israel.”

So look on the bright side. Tuttle has been scuttled, and her replacement will be carefully vetted by the German Minister of Culture, Wolfram Weimer, to make sure there is no repeat of the horror show that was this year’s Berlin Film Festival.