PIFF 2026: The Stories About War That We Are Being Denied

Author, screenwriter and activist Arundhati Roy announced on February 13, 2026 that she would not be attending the Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale) that is under way in Germany. A restored version of her 1989 TV film, In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones was selected under the festival's Classics section. She condemned the statements made by the festival's jury members in response to journalist Tilo Jung. Jung pointed out that the festival is funded by the German Government and has never expressed solidarity with Palestine. The filmmaker Wim Wenders, presiding over the jury, infamously responded, "We have to stay out of politics because if we make movies that are dedicatedly political, we enter the field of politics. But we are the counterweight of politics, we are the opposite of politics " The next day, Tricia Tuttle, the artistic director of the Berlinale, wrote in defense of the jury members that artists should not be expected to speak on every political issue raised to them unless they want to. This is the most recent addition to a series of examples of film festivals drawing attention for deflecting from addressing the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Closer to home, about a month ago, five films that were programmed and scheduled to play at the 24th Pune International Film Festival (PIFF), were not screened. These titles included The Voice of Hind Rajab (2025), All That’s Left of You (2025), Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk (2025), Timestamp (2025) and Memory (2025). All these stories look at political conflicts through different lenses. The festival was held across three venues in Pune from January 15 to 22. 

For any film to be screened in a film festival in India, either a certificate from the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) or a censor exemption from the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) under Section 9 of the Cinematograph Act, 1952 is mandatory. Only about a month ago, in December 2025, Palestinian American filmmaker Cherien Dabis’s All That’s Left of You was among the 19 titles that the MIB had denied permission to be screened at the 30th International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK). The film, which was part of PIFF’s World Competition, is a multigenerational fictional drama that traces a family amidst Israel’s war on Palestine right from 1948 to the present. Among the 19 films from IFFK that were denied permission were other acclaimed films including Santosh, the police-procedural set in India that was denied a theatrical release by the CBFC and Palestinian films including Palestine 36 (2025), Once Upon a Time in Gaza (2025) and Wajib (2017). 

Despite the restrictions, Kerala's Minister for Cultural Affairs Saji Cherian and Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan directed the Kerala State Chalchitra Academy to screen the films as per the original schedule. They were critical of the ministry’s attempt to block the films. On the contrary, PIFF—jointly organised by the Government of Maharashtra, the Maharashtra Film, Stage and Cultural Development Corporation Ltd and Pune Film Foundation—did not put out any communication regarding the cancellation of these films, let alone a reason justifying why they were cancelled. They were just quietly replaced in the schedule that was handed out to the attendees and posted on social media during the festival. The cancellations were largely unnoticed.

The films that did not screen at PIFF seem to have met the same fate as the ones denied permission at IFFK. This is not the first time that films based in warzones and selected at major film festivals in India have eventually not been screened. In October 2024, the Oscar-winning documentary about a village on the West Bank, No Other Land and one following Russian soldiers invading Ukraine, Russians at War were cancelled from the MAMI Mumbai Film Festival. A few days later, in November 2024, No Other Land and From Ground Zero, an anthology of animation, non-fiction and fiction from 22 Palestinian filmmakers depicting life in war-torn Gaza, were withdrawn from the Dharamshala International Film Festival (DIFF). These festivals notified the attendees in writing that the films had failed to receive permission to be screened.

On January 22, the same evening that PIFF concluded, The Voice of Hind Rajab was declared as a nominee for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film from Tunisia. The docudrama uses the real call recordings between a six-year-old Palestinian girl, Hind Rajab and volunteers at the Palestine Red Crescent Society. She was trapped in a car attacked with bullets by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and was surrounded by the corpses of her dead family. Paramedics Yusuf al-Zeino and Ahmed al-Madhoun were dispatched in an ambulance for her rescue, but along with Hind and her family, were discovered dead. Kaouther Ben Hania, the director of the film, has previously been nominated at the Oscars for her works, The Man Who Sold His Skin (2021) and Four Daughters (2023). After its premiere at the Venice International Film Festival 2025, it received the festival’s Grand Jury prize.

Iranian filmmaker Sepideh Farsi’s documentary, Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk follows Palestinian photojournalist Fatma Hassona over the course of a year as she survived losses in war-torn Gaza. Hassona’s photographs remain as an archive of the ongoing genocide in Gaza. On April 15, 2025, the film was declared as a part of the Association for the Distribution of Independent Cinema (ACID), a parallel selection of the Cannes Film Festival 2025. A day after receiving this news, an Israeli airstrike hit her home, killing Hassona and several from her family. The Guardian reported her words from social media, “If I die, I want a loud death,” she wrote, “I don’t want to be just breaking news, or a number in a group, I want a death that the world will hear, an impact that will remain through time and a timeless image that cannot be buried by time or place.”

Ukrainian filmmaker Kateryna Gornostai’s documentary Timestamp looks at how a school functions in-person and online amidst dangerous conditions after the Russian Invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, 2022. In Memory, Crimea-born filmmaker Vladlena Sandu looks back at her traumatic childhood amidst the Russian Federation’s war of occupation against the Chechen people in 1994. These films provide a look at the impact war has had on the daily life of those who witnessed it.

Although the five mentioned films above were silently revoked from PIFF, two films based in Palestine were screened–Once Upon A Time In Gaza and the documentary, Yalla Parkour (2024). Notably, Once Upon A Time in Gaza was one of the 12 films that was eventually granted clearance to be screened by the MIB after protests at IFFK. At DIFF 2025, the Palestinian documentary, With Hasan in Gaza,  which comprised footage recorded in 2001, had an extra screening, catering to public demand. What appears common between these three is that neither do they explicitly focus on the worsened situation in Gaza post October 7, 2023, nor do they name the Israeli military, culpable for the attacks that continue to cause death and destruction to date.

In the documentary Yalla Parkour, director Areeb Zuaiter connects with Ahmed Matar, a young Parkour athlete from Gaza. Ahmed shares with her many videos of his parkour team, PK Gaza. They feature young boys performing thrilling stunts, jumping, climbing and flipping their bodies against unusual backgrounds—explosions, rubble of bombed structures, a cemetery and the sandy dunes and seashore of Gaza. Ahmed confesses that the videos are the only way people see them. They led them to international recognition, especially from Red Bull, Al Jazeera and the BBC. For some, the resulting international invites became a ticket to a better life in another country. 

Much like Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, even here, the director living outside Gaza meets virtually with a resident of Gaza. The conversations between Areeb and Ahmed reveal the plight of the city before October 2023. When Areeb expresses her desire to visit Gaza, Ahmed says, “Let’s swap”. He admits that there’s “no future in Gaza”. When he is invited to another country, we see him struggle with a bureaucratic procedure to obtain a visa. He says that the border opens only once or twice a year. When he eventually manages to leave the country, he doesn’t return back home out of the fear of being stuck. Areeb herself is conflicted about visiting the city. Both talk of an emotional connection to Palestine but the political conflicts render it insecure for survival. Hence, they choose a life in another country. The conundrum of leaving one’s homeland is also apparent in the words of Fatma Hassona, the subject of Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, “...I think, would my brothers still be my brothers if I left seeking a better world and place and left them in this barren land, which was never barren?”

Films are made to be seen. Hassona wrote, “I roam the streets every day without any master plan. I just want the world to see what I see. I am taking photos to archive this period of my life.” Why then, are these films from regions facing cruel atrocities to this day not shown to us? I found an answer in White Snow, part of PIFF’s Indian Cinema selection. Set in Kashmir, it follows a woman who walks across arduous mountains from village to village with a TV laden on her Yak to screen her son’s banned short film. The banned film shows the birth of a child in a car stuck on snowy roads when it fails to reach a hospital. A religious leader opposes its depiction of postpartum blood, which he claims could provoke a rebellion. After she narrates its story to some villagers, a man says, “The state is afraid of the truth.” The context of the stories might be different, but the reason to censor seems to be the same. The denial of the public screening of these films point to a concerted effort at hiding a gruesome reality.