The International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), one of the largest and most prestigious documentary film festivals in the world, announced it will exclude Israeli state-financed movies and organizations from participating.
It recently rejected accreditation requests from DocAviv, the Tel Aviv International Documentary Festival; CoPro – the Israeli Content Marketing Foundation; and KAN, Israel’s state broadcaster. Representatives of these three institutions were invited to participate in its upcoming edition, which will run from November 13-23.
Isabel Arrate Fernandez, the artistic director of IDFA, told Deadline earlier this week, “We’ve been dealing with filmmakers and organizations from countries where there’s a lack of freedom of speech and repression for a long time. This meant we had to develop what was, until recently, an internal policy on how to handle a situation in which we show films that filmmakers keep under the radar for as long as possible, while at the same time receiving a request from the same government to bring a delegation.
How do we balance that? This year, we decided we needed to be more transparent about how we’re doing this, and about who we’re refusing and not refusing, so we came up with what we call our ‘Principles and Guidelines’.”
The document released by IDFA states that films and film professionals may come from any country, even those where freedom of speech is censored and governments commit human rights violations. But it also says that if organizations or films have ties or accept funding from a government that violates human rights, they may not attend.
Film Festival Boycott Hits Israeli Films and Festivals
Arrate Fernandez said, “For example, if such a government funds a film or project, these films are generally not selected. Official government delegations or institutions affiliated with these governments from these countries are not granted IDFA accreditation.” She said Israeli films would be considered on a case-by-case basis, but none are included in this year's IDFA.
A key fact when weighing the impact of this decision is that virtually all Israeli films receive support from government-backed film funds, as is the norm in most small countries' film industries. All Israeli film festivals and the Ophir Awards, the prizes of the Israeli Film and Television Academy, are also partly or fully government-funded. However, these organizations operate independently from the government.
Israeli filmmakers, especially documentary filmmakers, tend to be on the left politically and make films that are extremely critical of government policy and often tell the stories of Palestinians and other minorities. For example, Neta Shoshani’s recent documentary 1948: Remember, Remember Not, produced by KAN, was condemned by Culture and Sport Minister Miki Zohar, who threatened to cut funding to theaters that show it, such as the Tel Aviv Cinematheque.
The IDFA’s decision is in line with the thinking expressed by over 5,000 film-industry professionals who signed a pledge by Film Workers for Palestine earlier this year, in which they vowed not to boycott the Israeli film industry.
Israeli film professionals affected by the IDFA decision expressed their dismay. Limor Aharonovich, the festival director of DocAviv, responded, “The decision by IDFA to boycott Israeli cultural institutions directly harms freedom of creation and the international cultural space.
In a meeting we held with the festival’s management, we made it clear that Docaviv, like all cultural institutions in Israel, operates independently—even when it receives public funding. Nevertheless, IDFA decided to reject our participation in 2025 and to allow Israeli filmmakers to participate only in a personal capacity. This is an illogical move, since those same filmmakers work within the very institutions that the festival seeks to boycott.”
IDFA Decision is Exceptional and Damages Dialogue
Aharonovich continued, “For 27 years, Docaviv has been committed to freedom of expression and pluralism, presenting diverse voices—Jewish and Arab, Israeli and Palestinian. Many festivals around the world have expressed dismay at IDFA’s decision, which is seen as an exceptional and damaging departure from the values of dialogue and openness. Culture is not a tool for exclusion; it is a bridge to understanding and cooperation. The way to strengthen free voices is through encounter and joint creation—not through boycotts.”
Michal Weits, the artistic director of DocAviv, told Variety, “Even if 25% out of our budget is coming from the public funds, we are screening films that are very critical of the government, as well as stand against the war and against the occupation, because we’re aiming to build bridges between Palestinians and Israelis.”
Director and producer Alexander Rodnyansky, who is Ukrainian, wrote on Instagram that he was withdrawing his film, Notes of a True Criminal, from the IDFA in response to its decision to exclude Israeli film professionals.
“My film is not Israeli, and neither am I. I am Ukrainian, and my decision is based not on my nationality but on the principles I have held my entire life. It is my firm conviction that you cannot judge a nation and that we judge people by their actions, not by their passports,” he wrote.
“Israeli filmmakers are known for their strong political opinions, which often oppose government and military policies and practices, as Israel is a democratic country…⠀Banning institutions solely because they receive public funds is a duplicitous practice. It’s a hypocritical loophole exploited for political purposes because the universal reality of our industry is that in smaller markets, be it Eastern Europe or the Middle East, many film institutions cannot survive without some form of financial aid from the public.”
He added, “Recently, the UK Lawyers for Israel organisation sent out a legal warning over an industry boycott of Israeli film institutions, saying that it is a breach of the UK’s Equality Act. It also creates a precedent of the exclusion of individuals and organizations based solely on their nationality, ethnicity, and religion.”