Natalie Portman, 350 people in film industry back Israeli director forced from French festival

Actress Natalie Portman has joined more than 350 prominent figures in the international film industry in signing an open letter condemning the cultural boycott of Israeli director Nadav Lapid, who withdrew from a French film festival after pro-Palestinian filmmakers threatened to pull their films if he participated.

Mr. Lapid, a fierce critic of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government who has lived in self-imposed exile in France since 2021, had been set to serve on the jury of the FID Marseille international film festival, scheduled to run July 7–12. Those who objected to his participation pointed out that he accepted partial funding for his 2025 film “Yes” from the Israel Film Fund, which they view as an arm of the Israeli state.

Judith Lou Levy, producer of “Yes” at Les Films du Bal, told AFP that Israeli public funding accounted for only 12% of the film’s budget and that the subsidy came from an independent public fund rather than directly from the government — precisely the kind of body she said is under attack from the Netanyahu government. In reality, the fund is the country’s primary source of financing for both Israeli and Palestinian films and operates independently from the government, with a long legacy of supporting liberal voices. 

More than 350 leading figures in the French film industry signed an open letter published in the French newspaper Le Monde calling the cultural boycott an “intellectual failure.” Signatories include French directors Justine Triet (“Anatomy of a Fall”) and Jacques Audiard (“Emilia Perez”), as well as producers Said Ben Said and Ms. Levy. A second letter, also published in Le Monde and titled “Cinema Is Not an Embassy,” was signed by directors Alice Diop (“Saint Omer”) and Arthur Harari (“The Unknown”), along with producers Mr. Ben Said and Ms. Levy. It denounced what it described as a campaign of intimidation and a deliberate effort to exclude Mr. Lapid from a space for discussion and creation. 

The first letter argues that Mr. Lapid, like dissident Russian or Iranian filmmakers, should not be held accountable for crimes committed by governments whose fiercest critics they often are. The signatories point to Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev, who won the Grand Prix at Cannes last month for “Minotaur” and used the ceremony to call on Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine, as an example of why continued invitations place more political pressure on authoritarian regimes than boycotts do. 

The letter concludes that no artist should be “threatened with erasure in order to atone for crimes committed by governments whose fiercest critics they are often among,” adding that inviting such artists to festivals is itself a meaningful form of protest. 

Mr. Lapid described the episode as a product of institutional cowardice rather than the activism itself.

“Their power derives from the cowardice of institutions, which, at moments like this, prefer to make compromises, just as the festival in Marseille did,” he said. He nonetheless drew a distinction between the boycott pressure and broader French support. “Almost all of French cinema joined this petition, and that puts everything in proportion,” he told Israeli media. 

Israeli Culture Minister Miki Zohar weighed in, arguing that the episode illustrated that anti-Israel activists make no distinctions among Israelis regardless of political views.

“Nadav Lapid does not understand that Israel-haters do not distinguish between us,” Mr. Zohar wrote on social media. “No matter how much he tries to please them, they never saw him as one of their own, and to them he will always be a Jew from Israel.” 

Mr. Lapid rejected that framing. “People like Miki Zohar are trying to convince the public that this is one single bloc of Israel-haters,” he said, adding that he appreciated the minister’s solidarity while disputing his interpretation of events.

Mr. Lapid’s latest film, “Yes,” was described by Variety as a “blistering attack on Israeli nationalism.” The controversy was reported by the Hollywood Reporter and Variety; funding details were confirmed by Euronews via AFP.