Prominent actors and directors refuse collaboration with Israeli institutions 'complicit in genocide'

Olivia Colman, Javier Bardem and Mark Ruffalo are among more than 1,300 actors and filmmakers refusing to collaborate with Israeli film institutions "complicit in genocide".

On Monday, Oscar, Bafta, Emmy, Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Cesar, Goya, and Peabody Award winners launched a pledge Monday saying they refuse to work with Israeli film institutions “implicated in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people.”

Actors Olivia Colman, Aimee Lou Wood, Ayo Edebiri, Susan Sarandon, Mark Ruffalo, Riz Ahmed, Tilda Swinton, and Javier Bardem, and writer-directors Yorgos Lanthimos, Asif Kapadia, Ava DuVernay, Emma Seligman, Boots Riley, Adam McKay, and Joshua Oppenheimer said in a statement: “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.”

David Farr, an acclaimed British Jewish writer and director, said: “As the descendant of Holocaust survivors, I am distressed and enraged by the actions of the Israeli state, which has for decades enforced an apartheid system on the Palestinian people whose land they have taken, and which is now perpetuating genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza. In this context I cannot support my work being published or performed in Israel.”