Fin: On the BMFI Israel brouhaha: The case against canceling movie screenings

Plus: Intercontinental champions as movie stars, movies about O.J., and looking at the Joker

It’s not too often that Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper, breaks a story about the screening schedule of an arthouse movie theater five miles from my house in the Philadelphia suburbs. But that happened Tuesday in a wild, wild turn of events. 

Per the Haaretz report, Bryn Mawr Film Institute, an arthouse movie theater on Philadelphia’s main line, had canceled a planned showing of an Israeli movie called The Child Within Me. The film does not involve the war in Gaza or the Israeli/Palestinian conflict but tells the story of Yehuda Poliker, the son of Holocaust survivors who became a rock star in Israel.

Scheduled to show at BMFI as part of the Israeli Film Festival of Philadelphia, the screening had been targeted by local BDS activists. The Israeli Film Festival is held at multiple venues, and The Child Within Me was the only one held at BMFI. It’s not to be confused with Lindy Springfest, a Jewish film festival put on by Philadelphia Jewish Film and Media, which took place last weekend; despite featuring multiple Israeli films, it was not targeted by the activists, its programming chief told me. 

The theater explained its decision in a statement: 

“In past years, we have not regarded hosting a screening from the Israeli Film Festival as a political partnership or taking a stance on any issues,” the theater wrote in a statement posted to its website and Instagram. “However, as the situation in Israel and Gaza has developed, it has become clear that our showing this movie is being widely taken among individuals and institutions in our community as an endorsement of Israel’s recent and ongoing actions.”

But then, in a plot twist with no precedent that I can remember, a court ordered that the theater must honor its contract and show the film after all, and the screening took place as scheduled. I was not able to go.

BMFI then issued a second (better) statement:

Let’s be direct: we handled all of this very badly. We allowed the Israeli Film Festival to rent a theater at BMFI, as they have done for several years, to showcase a nonpolitical documentary about a musician. Due to concern for public safety, we decided to cancel the screening. The Israeli Film Festival has filed an injunction with a Montgomery County judge for breaking our contract, and we have been ordered to show The Child Within Me, so we are showing the movie. BMFI is an institution run by human beings. We are flawed and have blind spots. Sometimes we make bad calls. We understand that our actions have hurt and offended many. That was the opposite of our intention, and we apologize for disappointing so many members of our community

I’ve been critical of Israel and its conduct of the war in Gaza, enough so that I’ve gotten into tense arguments with both family members and friends in recent months. But I don’t like any aspect of this. 

As a lover of film and a believer in its power as a medium, I think it’s better in almost every case for a movie to be shown than not to be shown, mainly if pressure is being applied to the latter. 

With vanishingly few exceptions — like, say, a local theater hosting a many-times-accused sex offender — I’m against the idea of pushing for the cancellation of a movie showing. It’s censorious and anti-art, and I’d feel the same way if it was a pro-Palestinian film that pro-Israel activists were pushing to cancel. (The pro-Israel side, indeed, by no means has their hands clean when it comes to going for the cancellation of movies.) 

If one believes that Israeli films that are shown in the United States are entirely about pro-Israel propaganda, then one must not know all that much about Israeli cinema. Remember 2018’s Foxtrot, a movie about life in the IDF that included a scene where they cover up war crimes? It got wide distribution in the U.S.- and was denounced by Israel’s then-culture minister. Ironically, a screening of Foxtrot at a different Israeli Film Festival in Paris in 2018 was boycotted… by the Israeli government. 

Like in a lot of parts of the world, Israel’s filmmakers are among the more left-leaning elements of their society and are likely to have negative things to say in their work about the country’s government and occupation. I feel the same way about filmmakers from Iran, Russia, and other places where filmmakers often take on their own government. Those films should not be suppressed, even if we don’t like the people in charge of those countries. 

I can understand the argument that the Israeli Film Festival is tied in with the Israeli consulate and, therefore, its government. But the conflict itself will not be affected in any way whatsoever by 

I’m disappointed in BMFI, where I’m a regular attendee of films and its patented Cinema Classics Seminars, and I’ve known over the years to be run by good people. Samuel Scott, its chairman, is someone I’ve interviewed a couple of times, and he by no means deserves to be called an antisemite (especially since he’s on the board of a synagogue.) 

Even if you hate what Israel is doing, it’s not okay to go after Jewish-owned businesses or synagogues. It also tends to be counterproductive. When activists chanted outside of the Philadelphia Israeli restaurant Goldie a few months ago, the result wasn’t anything that helped people in Gaza- it was more people going to have lunch at Goldie. 

I have not seen The Child Within Me, although this controversy makes me much more likely to seek it out, and I imagine I’m not alone in that.