Israel’s largest film fund, the Rabinovitz Foundation’s Israel Cinema Project, has reportedly dropped its so-called “loyalty pledge” requiring producers seeking funding to sign a commitment that their film does not “harm the good name of the State of Israel.”
Israeli newspaper Haaretz on Wednesday said the foundation had given in to pressure from a group of local directors, who had called on the industry to boycott the institution until it changed its regulations. Some 50 Israeli filmmakers, including Hagai Levy, Ran Tal, Nadav Lapid, Shmulik Maoz, Guy Nativ, Ari Pullman, Eran Kolirin, Raanan Alexandrovich and others, supported the boycott.
Producers submitting projects for funding by the Rabinovitz Foundation were required to pledge that their films, explicitly or implicitly, do not include any statements or messages that deny the “existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state,” that mark “[Israeli] Independence Day or the day of the establishment of the state as a day of mourning” or that “harm the honor of the country’s flag.”
Directors who objected see the pledge as a form of political censorship, claiming it would outlaw depiction of Israeli history or current events that do not toe the official government line. Depicting Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories from the perspective of the Palestinians, for example, could be seen as a violation of the “loyalty” requirement.
Indeed, earlier this year, Israel’s new minister for culture and sport, Miki Zohar, said the government should not use taxpayer money to fund art that harms “Israel’s good name both in Israel and around the world,” or that criticizes the country’s military, the IDF.
Many of the same filmmakers signed a letter last summer calling for the Locarno Film Festival to drop the world premiere screening of Israeli feature My Neighbor Adolf from director Leon Prudovsky because it had been partially financed by the Israel Cinema Project. The group said the foundation attached “racist and explicitly political strings” as a condition for its funding.
The Rabinowitz Foundation’s Israel Cinema Project is the country’s largest film fund. Last year the group handed out around $8.7 million to back feature films, documentaries and student projects.
The directors’ protest comes amid mass demonstrations and unrest in Israel as hundreds of thousands of citizens have taken to the streets to oppose plans by the right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to overhaul the country’s judiciary, a move many see as a threat to Israel’s democratic foundations.
The so-called “loyalty pledge” pre-dates the current protests and can be traced to an amendment to an Israeli law in 2011. But, noted Ari Pullman, in an interview with Haaretz, “The question ‘what does or does not harm the honor of the state’ had one meaning six years ago, one a year ago, and it has a different meaning today because of everything that is happening around us. It cannot be ignored.”
Israel’s ministry of culture and sport has denied accusations of censorship. The Hollywood Reporter has reached out to the Rabinowitz Foundation for comment.
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