Author Arundhati Roy has announced that she will boycott the Berlin International Film Festival, also known as the Berlinale, in protest against remarks by members of the festival jury suggesting that filmmakers should avoid overtly political cinema.
Roy, a Booker Prize winner, said in a statement that she was “shocked and disgusted” by comments made by jury members, including its president Wim Wenders.
On Thursday, when asked about his views on the German government’s position on Gaza, Wenders said: “We have to stay out of politics because if we made movies that are dedicatedly political, we enter the field of politics, but we are the counterweight to politics. We have to do the work of people and not the work of politicians.”
Another jury member, Polish film producer Ewa Puszczynska, echoed Wenders’s remarks, saying it was “not fair” to ask the judges, as a group, to comment on government positions regarding the Gaza war.
In response, Roy criticised the statements, arguing that silence on Gaza would be judged by history.
“To hear them say that art should not be political is jaw-dropping. It is a way of shutting down a conversation about a crime against humanity even as it unfolds before us in real time – when artists, writers and film makers should be doing everything in their power to stop it,” she said.
Roy described the situation in Gaza as a genocide of the Palestinian people by the State of Israel. She further alleged that the actions are supported and funded by the governments of the United States and Germany, along with several other European countries, making them complicit.
“With deep regret, I must say that I will not be attending the Berlinale,” she said.
Roy had been scheduled to attend the 2026 edition of the festival to present a restored version of her 1989 film In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones.