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Venice Film Festival: Jewish director Sarah Friedland praised for Palestine solidarity speech

The American filmmaker said she was accepting the Luigi De Laurentiis award for best first film on the '336th day of Israel’s genocide in Gaza and 76th year of occupation'
SARAH_AWARD_FRIEDLAND
Sarah Friedland at the award ceremony of the 81st Venice Film Festival on 7 September 2024 at Venice Lido (Marco Bertorello/AFP)
By Mera Aladam
Published date: 9 September 2024 16:31 BST | Last update: 2 months 1 week ago

Online users have showered Jewish American director Sarah Friedland with praise after she expressed solidarity with Palestinians amid Israel's ongoing war on Gaza at the Venice Film Festival.

Friedland, who on Saturday won the Lion Of The Future - 'Luigi De Laurentiis' Venice Award for a Debut Film and the Orizzonti Best Director award for her film Familiar Touch, said she was accepting the award on the "336th day of Israel’s genocide in Gaza and 76th year of occupation".

“I believe it is our responsibility as filmmakers to use the institutional platforms through which we work to redress Israel’s impunity on the global stage," the filmmaker continued, to applause and cheers from the audience.

There has since been an outpouring of online approval for Friedland, whose statement went viral on social media. 

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“What a way to use your platform,” American Islamic scholar Omar Suleiman said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“#SarahFriedland deserves another global award for her unprecedented courage to stand with oppressed Palestinians,” another user wrote. 

Some users expressed interest in watching her film, with one post reading: “We need to support those brave few who speak out in an industry which shamefully ostracizes those who oppose Israeli apartheid and genocide.”
 

Several users called Friedland's speech "brave", citing the potential backlash she would receive. Since the start of Israel's war on Gaza, artists, rights activists and other public figures have said they were silenced and faced censorship for expressing pro-Palestinian sentiments.

“She knew the horrific vitriol she would get when she made a stand, and she did it anyway,” one user wrote on X.  
 

Pakistani writer and columnist Fatima Bhutto said: “Sarah Friedland has more heart and guts than literally everyone in Hollywood combined.”

Friedland's speech comes as Israel's war on the Gaza Strip nears its one-year anniversary.

At least 41,000 people in Gaza have been killed since 7 October, according to Palestinian officials, though this is considered to be a conservative estimate.

In July, experts said in a letter to the medical journal The Lancet that the actual death toll of Palestinians killed in Gaza could exceed 186,000.

Backlash against Friedland

Some social media users and writers have condemned Friedland’s speech,  describing her as a “self-loathing Jew”, an “assimilated privileged Jew” and other racial slurs.

In an open letter to Friedland, Israeli journalist Ben-Dror Yemini criticised her “for becoming the propaganda mechanism of Hamas”.

“No, Sarah Friedland, you are not brave. You are part of the herd mentality. It's fashion,” Yemeni wrote in a piece published on Ynet. “If there are more and more voices like yours, with hatred for Israel, jihad in the world becomes stronger - then they will come for you too. There is no immunity for those who supported Hamas just as there is no immunity for Muslims, who are the main victims of jihad.”

Many users responded to these criticisms, saying that “Sarah is on the right side of history”.

This is not the first time the award-winning director has stood up for the Palestinian cause.

Earlier this year, during the Passover holiday, Friedland published a post on X saying she “spent the second night of Passover getting arrested with hundreds of other anti-Zionist Jews at an emergency seder on Schumer’s doorstep demanding an end to US funding of genocide and divestment from Israel".

Friedland has also joined pro-Palestine protests since the beginning of the war last year. In one instance, she joined 1,500 anti-Zionist Jews in shutting down the Manhattan Bridge in New York, demanding a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and an end to Israel's occupation.

MEE has reached out to Friedland for comment.

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