A long list of Hollywood A-listers have joined a pledge by more than 1,300 film industry professionals to boycott Israeli film institutions that may be “implicated in genocide and apartheid” against Palestinians. The pledge, shared Monday, includes signatures from Olivia Colman, Mark Ruffalo, Ayo Edebiri, Riz Ahmed, and Tilda Swinton.
“As filmmakers, actors, film industry workers and institutions, we recognize the power of cinema to shape perceptions,” reads the pledge, led by the Film Workers for Palestine organization. “In this urgent moment of crisis, where many of our governments are enabling the carnage in Gaza, we must do everything we can to address complicity in that unrelenting horror.”
Also joining the growing list of stars signing the pledge are Yorgos Lanthimos, Ava DuVernay, Asif Kapadia, Emma Seligman, Adam McKay, Aimee Lou Wood, Gael García Bernal, Morgan Spector, Melissa Barrera, and Joe Alwyn.
The pledge adds: “The world’s highest court, the International Court of Justice, has ruled that there is a plausible risk of genocide in Gaza, and that Israel’s occupation and apartheid against Palestinians are unlawful. Standing for equality, justice and freedom for all is a profound moral duty that none of us can ignore.”
The pledge shares its support for Palestinian filmmakers who have faced “racism and dehumanization” amid Israel’s attacks on the Gaza Strip during its war with Hamas. The letter assures that those signing won’t screen films, appear at, or work with organizations that “are implicated in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people.”
David Farr, a screenwriter, was among those to sign the pledge, and spoke about his background as a descendant of Holocaust survivors. “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,” Farr wrote. “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.”
The pledge comes as many in the entertainment industry have voiced their concern over the war in the Gaza region. A similar letter was signed by numerous filmmakers earlier this summer about the film industry’s silence over Israel’s military attacks in Palestine. As of April 2025, at least 51,000 people had been killed since the war began in October 2023, according to The New York Times.
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The description of Israel’s reprisals in Gaza after the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, as genocide has been highly contentious. Humanitarian groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have used that term, as have many others; former president Joseph R. Biden and the American Jewish Committee, among other groups that support Israel, have strongly objected to this framing.
From Rolling Stone US
