Israel irked over anti-Zionist movie

Israel foreign ministry has banned the 2018 Israeli Film Festival in Paris, due to screening of the award-winning anti-Zionist film ‘Foxtrot’.

The regime’s culture minister Miri Regev, who has admitted to never having seen the film, has repeatedly lambasted the film, saying it “shows Israeli army soldiers in a deceptive manner as murderers and harms the good name of the Israel Defense Forces.”

The flick criticizes war and killing, and is ranked by film critics and analysts as an anti-war and anti-violence film. It includes a scene in which IDF soldiers cover up the murder of four Arab youths.

It won Grand Jury Prize award at the Venice Film Festival in 2017, as well as several domestic awards.

Israel’s embassy in France will boycott the opening ceremony of festival in Paris, after organizers refused the regime’s requests to showcase a film other than the controversial “Foxtrot.”

The embassy’s decision to boycott the opening ceremony came after organizers declined the request of an Israeli envoy, Aliza Ben-Nun, that they choose a less controversial film, according to one of the festival runners.

Helen Schumann, one of the festival’s directors also told reporters that she had been approached last month by the embassy’s cultural attaché, who asked her to pull the film because Regev “didn’t like it.”

She added that the festival’s previous editions screened several more controversial films, such as ‘Waltz with Bashir’.

Schumann also noted that the organizers were placing funding for next year’s festival at risk (by screening the anti-Israeli film).

MF/MF