The Blacklist No One Wants to Discuss
Posted on 06/12/2026 @ 06:30 AM
By Igor Shteyrenberg, Executive Director of the Miami Jewish Film Festival
Over the past week, one of the most troubling stories in the international film community has unfolded largely outside public view.
Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid — an acclaimed and internationally recognized director in his generation-- withdrew from the FIDMarseille film festival following a campaign of pressure surrounding his participation.
Several filmmakers reportedly withdrew their own work in protest of his inclusion, prompting a broader debate about artistic freedom, cultural boycotts, and whether artists should be judged according to their work or according to their nationality.
In response, an open letter signed by Natalie Portman along with numerous prominent filmmakers and cultural figures defended Lapid and warned against what they described as a campaign to exclude an artist not because of his films, but because of who he is.
Before anyone rushes to debate Nadav Lapid's politics, or even the merits of his films, a more fundamental question deserves our attention.
What principle is being established when an artist’s participation in cultural life becomes conditional not on their work, but on their identity?
I have no interest in framing this around whether one likes or dislikes Nadav Lapid’s films. That question is secondary.
The only question that matters here is whether cultural institutions are still governed by artistic judgment, or whether they are increasingly willing to judge artists according to their nationality, identity, or association with a country.
I encourage everyone to read the reporting and, in particular, consider one passage from the letter circulated in his defense that puts the issue plainly:
"In what way does the presence of a filmmaker on a jury or the screening of one of his films make him a representative of a state? Inviting an artist to a festival is not about elevating him to the status of a cultural ambassador, but about recognizing a body of work, a career, and a cinematic vision."
That question deserves a serious answer.
A film festival's responsibility is to evaluate films. A theater's responsibility is to present cinema. A cultural institution's responsibility is to foster engagement with art.
None of those responsibilities require judging artists according to their nationality, ethnicity, religion, or the actions of governments over which they have no control.
At this point, it is important to make a distinction that is too often blurred in these discussions.
Cultural institutions have every right to make programming decisions based on the content, quality, themes, or artistic merits of a work.
Every festival, theater, and museum exercises curatorial judgment. No institution is obligated to program every film simply because it exists.
Curation is not only legitimate; it is necessary.
But that is not what is at issue here.
A festival declining a film because it finds the work itself objectionable is making a judgment about art.
A festival declining participation because of a filmmaker's nationality, ethnicity, religion, or identity crosses the line from curation into discrimination.
That distinction matters.
The moment identity becomes the determining factor, artistic merit ceases to be the standard.
The artist becomes the subject of judgment rather than the work. And the consequences extend far beyond any single filmmaker.
For years, filmmakers -- both emerging and established -- have described patterns that are rarely acknowledged publicly: invitations that are rescinded without explanation, projects that quietly lose support, opportunities that evaporate with no reference to the work itself.
Since October 7, these patterns have become more visible and more difficult to ignore.
Many of us in the film community have been sounding the alarm about this long before it became a mainstream conversation.
What many of us have observed is not merely criticism of Israeli government policy. Criticism of governments is legitimate, necessary, and entirely compatible with artistic freedom.
The concern arises when that criticism begins to attach itself not to governments, but to artists.
Not to policies, but to identities.
When filmmakers find themselves scrutinized, excluded, or subjected to standards that are not applied to others because they are Israeli, we are no longer discussing political disagreement. We are discussing unequal treatment.
And when that unequal treatment is directed at individuals because they are Israeli --or, in some cases, because they are Jewish-- it becomes entirely reasonable to ask whether prejudice is playing a role.
Not every criticism of Israel is antisemitic. It would be intellectually dishonest to suggest otherwise.
But it is equally dishonest to pretend that antisemitism cannot manifest itself through the selective exclusion of Israeli and Jewish artists from cultural life.
When standards are applied unevenly, when individuals are judged according to identities they cannot change, and when participation itself becomes contingent upon nationality, the question of antisemitism is no longer inappropriate. It becomes unavoidable.
What makes this more troubling is that it occurs within institutions that routinely present themselves as champions of diversity, inclusion, dialogue, and artistic freedom.
Yet diversity that excludes people based on nationality is not diversity. Inclusion that excludes people based on identity is not inclusion.
Artistic freedom that exists only for approved artists is not artistic freedom, as we saw at the Toronto Film Festival just last year.
Our Miami Jewish Film Festival has screened Nadav Lapid's work numerous times over the years. These are not easy films.
They are demanding, provocative, and often deeply uncomfortable. They ask difficult questions. They unsettle audiences. They inspire debate.
In other words, they do exactly what serious cinema has always been expected to do.
These are also films that have been recognized at Cannes, Berlin, and throughout the international film community because of their artistic significance.
Their merit was never in question. So the obvious question remains: What changed?
If the films were worthy before, why is the filmmaker now considered unacceptable? If the answer is not the films themselves, then the answer necessarily lies elsewhere.
And if an artist’s eligibility is increasingly being determined by identity rather than work; if Israeli filmmakers are being subjected to standards not applied consistently to others; and if Jewish artists are encountering barriers that cannot be explained by artistic judgment alone, then the burden is on cultural institutions to explain the principle guiding these decisions.
The easiest response is to insist that this is solely about politics.
But if politics were truly the standard, cultural institutions would be applying that standard universally.
They would be excluding artists from every nation engaged in controversial policies, military conflicts, territorial disputes, or human rights controversies. They do not.
What increasingly appears to be emerging is not a universal principle, but a selective one. And selective standards deserve scrutiny.
At some point, the distinction between political opposition and ethnic or national prejudice becomes impossible to ignore.
The arts have historically been strongest when they resist precisely this kind of thinking --when they insist that artists be judged by the quality of their work rather than by assumptions attached to their identity.
That principle is worth defending regardless of one's views on Israel, Nadav Lapid, or any other political question.
The issue is larger than Nadav Lapid. It is larger than any individual film.
History is clear on what happens when artistic merit is displaced by ideological or identity-based tests. Cultural life narrows. Institutions become less willing to take risks. And art loses its essential function: to challenge, provoke, and expand what is thinkable.
Anyone who genuinely cares about cinema, artistic freedom, and the future of cultural institutions should find this deeply troubling.
What is perhaps most disturbing of all is not the censorship itself, but the persistent silence that too often surrounds it.
