Shalom to all,

I am very pleased to stand here this evening at the Solidarity Festival, the only festival in Israel dedicated to activism and human rights. I would like to extend my gratitude to Danny Wilensky, the founder and director of the festival, to Gidi Aviv, the artistic director, and to the entire festival team and our partners who are here with us tonight.

“Festival” is a peculiar word, especially in the context of cinema focused on human rights. Human rights often remain invisible until they are trampled over, and if we talk about them, it’s likely because they are being trampled – and they are. We know this.

How do we carry on knowing that the government is condemning our hostages to death? How do we continue in the face of the starvation in northern Gaza? How do we pursue our struggle against the regime revolution?

Human rights violations have been amassing into a dreadful tangle of fear and hardship, and many people prefer to avert their gaze, maybe in the hope that this wave will pass them over. However, such waves don’t disappear on their own, and the reality demands that we face it head-on.

This festival began in 2011, the year of the social justice protests. Remember? It’s hard to recall today the demand for “social justice.” It drowned in Operation Pillar of Defense, Operation Protective Edge, Operation Guardian of the Walls, and after the horrific massacre of October 7th. That’s what happens when we fear confronting reality: We are doomed to relive it in endless loops of despair and fear.

Even now, at a time when talking about art and human rights seems frivolous, those who have come here tonight know that it is the opposite of frivolity. It is about taking an hour, two, or three to see what people have to say about the reality through films, to try to deeply understand a piece of it and then interpret it. It is an enormous gesture of faith in humanity.

Cinema demands more than vision, aesthetic sensibility, and cinematic skill. Cinema is an expensive endeavor. Films cost money, which is why it is so easy to intimidate filmmakers. Without money, there’s no production. That’s why governments worldwide, and certainly in Israel, first target cinema, theater, and television.

Intimidating artists has always been a pastime of Netanyahu’s governments. To label them as traitors, tell them what kinds of films they should make, what they should care about and how they should express it. It’s incredibly difficult to create in this kind of atmosphere.
It’s hard, and it’s frightening to know that your country will not only fail to support you but may even target you.

Too many artists in Israel have experienced this. It recently happened to the creators of the film Lod, which will be screened in this festival. An earlier screening was banned by the police at the request of Culture Minister Miki Zohar. They are just the latest in a line of creators whom this government has tried to silence, just as it has been trying to muzzle the free media in a bid to annihilate it.

Thus, every film here is a tremendous act of faith. And in a year when it would have been so easy to despair, the Israeli public has shown what it’s made of. I look at the audience here tonight and think: sometimes, that faith is justified and there is reason to be proud.

Thank you for coming. And thank you all for this festival. It’s hard to put into words just how important it is.