Palestinian cast boycotted Cannes this year: Read on to find the reason

Lahore, 13th July: This Palestinian cast refused to take part in the 2021 Cannes Film Festival over inclusion as an ‘Israeli film.’

The cast of the film ‘Let There Be Morning’ boycotted the Cannes Film Festival, despite the film was ready to premiere at Cannes on July 10.

The movie cast who are Palestinian citizens of Israel wrote an open letter to Cannes and shared it on social media too. They said that they will be protesting against Israel’s cultural erasure of the Palestinians.

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According to details, the cast of the Palestinian film protested their film’s categorization as ‘Israeli’ even though it is about the Palestinians living oppressed under Israeli occupation.

The cast said in a statement that they cannot just ignore the film’s entry into Cannes under the label of an ‘Israeli film’ when Israel continues to carry its decades-long colonial campaign of ethnic cleansing, forced deportation, and discrimination against the Palestinian people.

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“Each time the film industry assumes that we and our work come under the category of the ethnonational label of ‘Israeli,’ it further preserves an unacceptable reality that imposes on us, Palestinian artists with Israeli citizenship, and identity imposed by Zionist colonization to maintain the ongoing oppression of Palestinians inside historic Palestine; the denial of our language, history and identity,” the cast expressed.

They further wrote, “Expecting us to stand by and do nothing except for accepting the label of a state that has authorized this latest wave of violence not only normalizes apartheid but also continues to permit the denial and whitewashing of violence and crimes inflicted on Palestinians.”

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The film ‘Let There Be Morning’ is based on a novel by a Palestinian journalist with Israeli citizenship. The story is about an identity crisis under Israeli oppression.

Reportedly many of the cast members grew up under Israeli apartheid and many have used social media to protest against human rights violations.

The movie cast urged that institutions like Cannes Film Festival should highlight Palestinian voices.

Watch the video here:

This Palestinian cast is skipping the #CannesFilmFestival after it categorized their film as "Israeli."

In an open letter to Cannes, they said that the film's label as "Israeli" perpetuates the erasure of Palestinian culture and identity. pic.twitter.com/VLu38sJgsf

— AJ+ (@ajplus) July 12, 2021