The 29th Israeli Film Festival took place at the Saban Theatre in Los Angeles, Calif. Wednesday, honouring a distinguished cadre of actors, directors and screenwriters, including British actress Helen Mirren, and American screenwriter Aaron Sorkin.
Speaking to the press ahead of the ceremony, Mirren, an Academy Award winner, discussed the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, which she referred to as “a really bad idea.”
“The people who are the most inspiring in Israel tend to be from the cultural community. The writers, the directors, the poets, the musicians, they are truly extraordinary people doing amazing work, peace giving work, working towards peace all the time,” she said. “To cut them off is the craziest idea, I don’t agree with it at all.”
Mirren went on to express her support with a group of British figures who signed an open letter that encouraged cultural engagement with Israel as opposed to a cultural boycott. Signatories include Melvyn Bragg, Hilary Mante, Simon Schama and Harry Potter author JK Rowling.
In this year’s Woman in Gold, Mirren portrays a woman fighting the Austrian government to retrieve art stolen from her Jewish family during the Holocaust. In 2010, she played the role of a retired Mossad agent in The Debt. To prepare, she reportedly studied Hebrew, Jewish writings and the Holocaust at length.
Accepting the Career Achievement Award from actress Diane Lane, who stars alongside her in Trumbo, Mirren used the opportunity to reflect on her “relationship with that beautiful country Israel,” noting how she worked on a kibbutz following the Six Day War in 1967.
“After we worked there on the kibbutz we hitchhiked around Israel and I actually slept on the beach in Eilat, so that was my first experience of Israel and I was very taken by the country and especially by the people at that time,” she said.
“I love Israel, I think it is a great, great country,” she continued. “I think that through all the difficulties, and all the pain that Israel has suffered in the past and will in the future, the great thing that Israel has is Israelis, and they will guide it through.”
“Israel has an important place in my heart,” she concluded.
During an interview on the red carpet, Sorkin, who accepted the IFF Achievement in Film & Television Award, said that, “It couldn’t be more important to support Israel.”
When asked by the Jewish Journal what comes to mind when he hears the word ‘Israel,’ Sorkin replied, “Fear, to be honest, that this remarkable country, so small, is surrounded by so many enemies. We forget that in the U.S. we have friendly neighbours to the north and south and oceans to the east and west, but Israel doesn’t have that luxury.”
During his acceptance speech, Sorkin encouraged for more films to be made that depict the situation in the Middle East.
“My friends who are screenwriters tell me that successfully pitching a movie that takes place in the Middle East is somewhere between very difficult and impossible. The reaction from the studios usually is, ‘That’s a good story but who right now wants to see a movie set in that part of the world?'”
“I do,” he said. “I want to see a lot of them. There are great stories that don’t take place in my front yard.”