1,200+ Film Workers Pledge To Not Work With Israeli Film Institutions Implicated In Genocide Of Palestinians

More than 1,200 filmmakers, actors, and industry workers have signed a sweeping pledge refusing collaboration with Israeli film institutions tied to genocide and apartheid. The declaration, endorsed by figures like Ava DuVernay, Gael García Bernal, Mark Ruffalo, Olivia Colman, Josh O’Connor, Aimee Lou Wood, Joshua Oppenheimer, Riz Ahmed, and Tilda Swinton, marks an unprecedented rupture in global cinema’s complicity. For the first time at this scale, the industry’s power brokers are putting their names to a demand: the film world cannot stay silent while Gaza burns.

The pledge makes its position unmistakable: “As filmmakers, actors, film industry workers, and institutions, we recognize the power of cinema to shape perceptions. 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.”  During the ongoing devastation in Gaza engineered by Israel, filmmakers insist that neutrality is impossible. With the International Court of Justice affirming a “plausible risk of genocide” in Gaza, the signatories reject partnerships with Israeli festivals, broadcasters, production companies, and institutions implicated in apartheid and war crimes.

The cultural conversation has only intensified with the recent reception of The Voice of Hind Rajab (2025), a film recounting the final days of a five-year-old girl killed by Israeli forces in Gaza last year. Its Venice premiere ended with a 23-minute standing ovation, a haunting reminder of how art sharpens grief into memory and testimony. The film’s executive producers, including Brad Pitt, Jonathan Glazer, Joaquin Phoenix, Rooney Mara, and Alfonso Cuarón, ensured its story reverberated far beyond the festival hall.

The echo is intentional: history will remember whether cinema chose to look away or to confront Israel’s atrocities. The pledge commits its signatories to abstain from screening films, attending festivals, or partnering with Israeli film institutions tied to oppression. It is both boycott and solidarity, refusing complicity while affirming a duty to justice and freedom.

The pledge, published by Film Workers for Palestine, arrives at a time when the global film industry is being forced to confront its own silences. Screenwriter David Farr, one of the signatories, framed his support in stark moral terms: “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.” The statement frames solidarity as both ethical responsibility and historical continuity in cinema, by asking those with influence to take a stand. It indicates that the global film fraternity is slowly, but steadily extending support in unambiguous terms to Palestinian artists who have called on their peers to confront racism, dehumanisation, and silence. Film Workers for Palestine takes inspiration from organisations like Filmmakers United Against Apartheid, who once refused to screen their work in apartheid South Africa. 

Many of the same figures had earlier joined the hundreds of Screen Actors Guild members who, in 2024, urged their union leadership to shield members from being blacklisted for their stance on Palestine. Parallely, the Norwegian Actors’ Equity Association recently advised its members to decline collaborations with Israeli cultural institutions complicit in the state’s machinery of violence.