Published: 2 July 2019
Last updated: 4 March 2024
ON JUNE 21, a few dozen theatre professionals convened at the Tzavta Theatre in Tel Aviv for an “emergency conference” to discuss self-censorship in the theatre. The message of the gathering, held under the auspices of the New Israel Fund and headlined “Censoring Ourselves to Death,” was clear: After four years as Israel’s culture minister, Miri Regev has won.
“Israeli culture is growing silent in the face of the despotism practiced by the government ministries entrusted with supporting it,” playwright Motti Lerner wrote in a brochure handed out to participants.
A week later Regev picked up her censor stamp again, this time over the documentary film Advocate, which tells the unique story of Jewish-Israeli attorney Lea Tsemel dubbed “the attorney of the terrorists.”
The movie won first prize last month at the Docaviv International Documentary Film Festival in Tel Aviv, and as always, without even seeing it, Regev demanded that the national lottery that supported the film “dissociate itself from the prize and the festival leaders’ decision to award it to the film.”
The national lottery management gave in and announced on June 27 that it would examine legal options for rescinding its grant to the documentary and pull all future funding for the festival prize.
FULL STORY Israeli theatre world struggles with self-censorship (Al-Monitor)
National lottery pulls funding for festival prize after divisive film wins (Times of Israel)
Mifal HaPayis says it will also examine legal options to rescind grant to documentary about Israeli lawyer who has defended Palestinian terror suspects
Photo: Still from the film Advocate
