Swiss Queer Film Fest Drops Israeli Film After Boycott Threats: “We’re Not Sundance, Right?”

Israel ’s official Oscar submission, Moshe Rosenthal’s Tell Me Everything , has been dropped by the queer-themed Everybody’s Perfect film festival in Switzerland after receiving boycott and protest calls and threats.

“The Geneva Everybody’s Perfect film festival is a place to convene, dedicated to human rights and queer expression around the world. Art and cinema can do just that,” the festival’s artistic director Sylvie Cachin said in a statement. “The world is particularly polarized and this festival is trying to unite people and raise awareness about LGBTIQ+ issues… Love not hate.” Related Stories Movies For Israeli Actress Noa Cohen, October 7 Is Both Personal and Professional Movies Oscars: Pakistan Picks 'Hanging by a Wire' for Best International Feature Film Race

Rosenthal’s film, titled Independence in Hebrew, premiered at Sundance and won the top best picture award at Israel’s Ophir Awards, automatically making it the country’s Academy Awards entry. Charlotte Sector, communications chief for Everybody’s Perfect, told The Hollywood Reporter that director and screenwriter Rosenthal’s movie had been “deprogrammed” after emails with boycott threats had been received from a rival Geneva-based festival, Palestine , Filmer C’est Exister and other groups.

“This is very difficult. It’s difficult because we’re not Sundance, right? We don’t have lawyers. We don’t have that amazing backstop that we would love to have,” Sector explained. The Geneva-based festival canceled two screenings of Tell Me Everything set for Oct. 13 and 17 to avoid potential theater protests and added political backlash.

The Israeli film, set in 1987, centers on a 12-year-old boy, Boaz, played by Yair Mazor, who, while preparing for his bar mitzvah, is shocked to witness his father (Assi Cohen) having sex in a swimming pool locker room. Boaz’s family life is upturned just as the AIDs epidemic takes hold. But a decade later, the father and his older son, now played by Ido Tako, attempt to reconcile and accept one another.

The film’s cast includes Keren Tzur, Neta Orbach and Mor Demari. Sector said the festival’s programmers dropped Tell Me Everything with “great regret” after running into a buzzsaw of media attention and political polarization around Israel and Palestine.

“Everyone is just very emotional about this. We, the festival, are trying to promote love. And there’s so much backlash against human rights, backlash against gay LGBTIQ rights and it’s coming from everywhere,” she explained. Sector added the film festival had received “hate messages” from progressive groups claiming Everybody’s Perfect had made the wrong decision in canceling a queer-themed Israeli film.

“The boycott might go the other way,” she warned of a film festival caught in political crossfire one day before the event kicks off on Oct. 9. “This film festival is trying to show something in between, and now we are in a situation where we’re displeasing the right, the left, the center, everything,” Sector said with frustration.

And that’s from what she sees as an artistic film that was to have been included the festival’s 13 th edition, with 73 films scheduled to screen until Oct. 18.