Over 1,800 internationally known actors, directors, and film professionals pledged on 8 September to boycott Israeli film institutions that are “implicated in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people.”

The pledge, released by Film Workers for Palestine, states, “As filmmakers, actors, industry workers, and institutions, we recognize cinema’s power to shape perceptions. In this urgent crisis, where many governments enable the carnage in Gaza, we must address complicity in this unrelenting horror.”

It highlights that the International Criminal Court (ICC) has determined a “plausible risk of genocide” in Gaza and describes Israel’s occupation and apartheid policies as unlawful. 

The pledge stresses that the call is directed at institutions, not individuals. “The call is for film workers to refuse to work with Israeli institutions that are complicit in Israel’s human rights abuses.” Israeli institutions, it adds, have engaged in “whitewashing or justifying” the abuse of Palestinians.

The list of signatories includes prominent actors Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Olivia Colman, Tilda Swinton, Ayo Edebiri, Javier Bardem, Aimee Lou Wood, Cynthia Nixon, Joe Alwyn, Gael Garcia Bernal, and Riz Ahmed. 

Directors such as Yorgos Lanthimos, Ava DuVernay, Adam McKay, Asif Kapadia, Boots Riley, Emma Seligman, and Joshua Oppenheimer also signed the petition.

Screenwriter David Farr, a descendant of Holocaust survivors, said, “I am distressed and enraged by the actions of the Israeli state, which has for decades enforced an apartheid system on the Palestinian people whose land they have taken, and which is now perpetuating genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza.” 

“In this context I cannot support my work being published or performed in Israel. The cultural boycott was significant in South Africa. It will be significant this time and in my view should be supported by all artists of conscience,” Farr added.

The petition draws on the legacy of Filmmakers United Against Apartheid (FUAA), which was formed in 1987 by figures including renowned filmmakers Jonathan Demme and Martin Scorsese to oppose Hollywood’s role in apartheid South Africa. 

Today’s signatories say they will “not screen films, appear at, or work with Israeli film institutions – including festivals, cinemas, broadcasters, and production companies – that are implicated in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people.”

Earlier this summer, hundreds of industry names, including Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Ralph Fiennes, and Guillermo del Toro, signed an open letter condemning what they called the film industry’s silence over Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

For its part, Israeli Culture Minister Miki Zohar denounced the boycott as “cynical and disconnected.” The Yehoshua Rabinowitz Foundation, Israel’s largest film fund, claimed cultural boycotts “primarily harm creators, students, and young cultural professionals.”