In a move that manages to combine moral outrage with the efficiency of a mass email, more than 1,200 film industry figures, including Yorgos Lanthimos, Olivia Colman, Ayo Edebiri, and Josh O’Connor, have pledged to boycott Israeli film institutions they say are “complicit in war crimes.” The letter is less a manifesto than a collective “unsubscribe” from working with state-funded cultural bodies, which some signatories admit they weren’t exactly drowning in offers from anyway.
Hollywood insiders were quick to note the irony: the same industry that regularly turns war crimes into Oscar-bait is now bravely refusing to make arthouse dramas in Tel Aviv. One producer grumbled, “Great, so no one’s directing my desert-set rom-com about trauma now?” Meanwhile, Lanthimos reportedly considered turning the boycott into a film, but was forced to admit the plot was simply too bleak, and that’s coming from the guy who made The Lobster.
