Over 600 Oscar voters slam Academy for ‘lack of support’ to Palestinian filmmaker

NEW YORK: More than 600 members have signed an open letter denouncing the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ “lack of support” for Hamdan Ballal, the Oscar-winning documentarian who was beten and arrested Monday by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank.

The letter noted that Academy president Janet Yang and CEO Bill Kramer “fell far short” with their statement Wednesday, which was apparently emailed to members under the subject line, “Our Global Film Community.” The statement didn’t mention Ballal or his film by name.

His 2024 documentary “No Other Land” chronicled the ongoing eviction of Palestinians from their West Bank homes and was co-directed with Basel Adra, a fellow Palestinian, and Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor. It won the Oscar for Best Documentary earlier this year.

“We stand in condemnation of the brutal assault and unlawful detention of Oscar-winning Palestinian filmmaker Hamdan Ballal by settlers and Israeli forces in the West Bank,” the letter said at the outset. “As artists, we depend on our ability to tell stories without reprisals.”

“Documentary filmmakers often expose themselves to extreme risks to enlighten the world,” it continued. “It is indefensible for an organization to recognize a film with an award in the first week of March, and then fail to defend its filmmakers just a few weeks later.”

Signatories include actors Mark Ruffalo, Javier Bardem, John Cusack and Susan Sarandon, as well as award-winning directors Alfonso Cuaron and Jonathan Glazer, who condemned Israel’s ongoing military offensive in Gaza during his own Oscars speech in 2024.

Ballal was severely beaten Monday by Israeli settlers before the military detained him, two of his fellow directors and other witnesses told The Associated Press, an American news ageny. Ballal told the outlet following his release Tuesday that he was beaten by Israeli soldiers during his captivity.

“The targeting of Ballal is not just an attack on one filmmaker — it is an attack on all those who dare to bear witness and tell inconvenient truths,” the open letter stated. “We will continue to watch over this film team … and we will not mince words when the safety of a fellow artist is at stake.”

The academy members say the organization sent a statement on Wednesday with the subject line “Our Global Film Community.”

“Understandably, we are often asked to speak on behalf of the Academy in response to social, political, and economic events,” the Academy said. “In these instances, it is important to note that the Academy represents close to 11,000 global members with many unique viewpoints.”

“We are, however, united in a shared belief in the importance of storytelling, in the value of empathy, and in the role of film as a catalyst,” the organization added.

However, many academy members believed that the statement “failed to mention either Ballal or the film by name, nor did it describe the events it was responding to.

“The statement by Bill Kramer and Janet Yang fell far short of the sentiments this moment calls for,” the statement read. “Therefore, we are issuing our own statement, which speaks for the undersigned members of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.”

Late Friday, the academy said that Kramer and Yang expressed regret for failing to “Ballal and the film by name.”

“We sincerely apologize to Mr. Ballal and all artists who felt unsupported by our previous statement and want to make it clear that the Academy condemns violence of this kind anywhere in the world. We abhor the suppression of free speech under any circumstances,” they wrote in a letter to members.