Arundhati Roy Pulls Out of German Film Festival

Image: Jihad Watch

Indian author Arundhati Roy has announced her decision to withdraw from participation in the Berlin International Film Festival after remarks made by jury president Wim Wenders suggesting that cinema should remain separate from political debates, particularly when he was questioned about the situation in Gaza. In a statement shared with Agence France-Presse (AFP), Roy expressed that she felt “shocked and disgusted” by the responses given by Wenders and other jury members during a press conference, where they declined to adopt a political position on the issue.

Roy, internationally recognized for her Booker Prize–winning novel The God of Small Things, had been invited to the festival as a special guest to present a restored version of the 1989 film In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones, a project in which she both acted and wrote the screenplay. However, she stated that what she described as “unconscionable” remarks from Wenders and fellow jury members compelled her to reconsider her participation, adding that she was stepping away “with deep regret.”

During the press interaction, when questions were raised about Germany’s political support for Israel, Wenders responded that filmmakers could not realistically “enter the field of politics,” portraying cinema as a moral and cultural counterbalance rather than a political instrument. Another jury member, Ewa Puszczynska, commented that it was somewhat unfair to expect the jury to take a direct political stance on a complex geopolitical conflict.

Roy, however, sharply disagreed, arguing that the suggestion that art should remain apolitical was “jaw-dropping.” She went further by describing Israel’s military actions in Gaza as “a genocide of the Palestinian people by the State of Israel,” asserting that if leading artists and filmmakers failed to acknowledge this, history would judge them harshly.

Critics of Roy’s statement argue that such language reflects a careless and emotionally charged use of terminology, particularly regarding the word “genocide,” which has a precise legal and historical meaning — the deliberate and intentional destruction of a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. They contend that accusations of genocide require demonstrable intent, not merely civilian casualties within the context of armed conflict. Questions are raised about how widely such claims are accepted globally without scrutiny of facts, including the complexity of urban warfare, civilian warning measures reportedly undertaken by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), and humanitarian aid deliveries into Gaza.

Those critical of Roy’s position further argue that public discourse has increasingly been shaped by repetition across traditional and social media rather than careful examination of evidence, intent, and context. From this perspective, the debate is not only about geopolitics but also about the responsibility of influential intellectual figures to use precise language, particularly when accusations carry profound moral and legal implications.

(This Article was originally published by Jihad Watch)