As thousands of Hollywood stars and creatives join calls to boycott Israel’s cultural institutions over the war in Gaza, a growing chorus of Israeli filmmakers is warning: the backlash might end up punishing the very people risking their careers to challenge their own government.
Last week, nearly 4,000 entertainment figures — including Emma Stone, Joaquin Phoenix, and Javier Bardem — signed a petition urging a cultural boycott of Israel, citing alleged war crimes. At the Emmy Awards, Bardem even called for diplomatic and commercial sanctions. But inside Israel’s small, left-leaning film scene, many artists say they are being miscast as mouthpieces of the state — when in reality, they have long stood in opposition to it.
Caught between state and sanctions
The controversy comes just as the Israeli Academy of Film and Television is poised to submit “The Sea” — a wrenching drama about a Palestinian boy’s first glimpse of the Mediterranean — as the country’s official Oscar entry. It is one of several recent anti-war films backed by the Israel Film Fund, the nation’s main public financing body, alongside titles like Nadav Lapid’s “Yes” and Netalie Braun’s “Oxygen.”
Though state-funded, the Israel Film Fund has historically supported some of the fiercest critics of Israeli policy, including Ari Folman’s Waltz With Bashir and Samuel Maoz’s Lebanon. Its leaders are chosen independently, and grants are awarded based on artistic merit. Yet boycott advocates argue that no publicly funded Israeli institution can be considered neutral while war rages in Gaza.
“This boycott isn’t hurting the government. It’s hurting the few of us who are still shouting against it,” says producer Eitan Mansuri, known for Foxtrot and the series No Man’s Land. “We are the ones trying to hold a mirror to our society, and now we are being abandoned.”
Risking careers to tell the truth
Directors like Lapid know the stakes. A longtime critic of Israeli nationalism, he struggled to raise funding for Yes even before the war; when the conflict escalated, most of his foreign investors pulled out. He salvaged the project with the help of French partners, but says the war created a climate of fear that made collaborators “run away like someone who saw a mouse.”
Other filmmakers tell similar stories: cancelled co-productions, withdrawn festival invitations, and emails that simply stopped coming. “People are scared that working with us makes them look like they’re picking a side,” Mansuri says. “But our side is art, not war.”
Ironically, many of these filmmakers have been among Israel’s loudest dissenters — protesting the far-right government, defending Palestinian rights, and making films that expose military abuses. Now they risk being cut off from the very international community they once relied on for solidarity.
Bridges in danger of burning
Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers have collaborated for years on works like Paradise Now, Ajami, Tel Aviv on Fire, and Our Boys. These joint projects, Mansuri notes, often succeed precisely because they bypass government control and foster direct artistic dialogue.
Writers like Michal Aviram (Fauda) warn that isolating Israeli artists could also strengthen the government they oppose. “The authorities already want to defund our film festivals and shut down our funds because we show Palestinian stories,” she says. “By boycotting us, you’re doing their work for them.”
Aviram argues that artists play a crucial role in showing Israeli audiences the realities of Gaza — realities often absent from mainstream media. Silencing those artists, she says, will only deepen denial and polarization. “If you don’t want to see Gaza here, you don’t. That’s why our work matters.”
Plea for nuance
Even those sympathetic to the boycott’s goals fear it is a blunt weapon. Lapid says he applauds concern for Gazan lives, but doubts the petition will change Israeli policy: “The government doesn’t care what Emma Stone thinks. It only hurts our filmmakers, and the only ones who benefit are the propagandists.”
He suggests Western governments impose formal political sanctions on Israel if they wish to send a clear message, rather than leaving individual artists to bear the fallout. “If Israel were sanctioned like Russia, our films would be seen as voices of dissent, not as tools of the state,” Lapid says.
For now, many Israeli filmmakers feel abandoned — targeted at home by censors, and abroad by boycotts. “We are being squeezed from both sides,” says Eliran Elya of the Israeli Directors Guild. “Art should build bridges, not burn them. If you silence us, the only voices left will be the ones cheering for war.”