Berlinale 2026: Films play second fiddle to Gaza controversies for the third year running

After years of controversy over the genocide in Gaza, this was the year that the Berlin Film Festival was meant to find some respite and reaffirm itself as a marketplace for world cinema. 

But that respite never came. For the third consecutive year, the Berlinale has been overshadowed by Palestine and by what many view as unacknowledged complicity of the German state in Israel's war crimes.

Of all the major film festivals in Europe and North America, the Berlinale has been the only one to mismanage the aftermath of 7 October to this extent. 

The notorious 2024 edition - where the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land premiered - ended with German politicians publicly attacking the filmmakers who expressed solidarity with Palestine, accusing the now-retired festival leadership of enabling antisemitism and amplifying Hamas. 

The 76th Berlinale was aiming for a fresh start last year with the appointment of American programmer Tricia Tuttle and a new team, but turning over a new leaf proved far more arduous than anticipated.

In her first year in charge, Gaza continued to loom large over the festival. Strike Germany called for the boycott of the event in light of what occurred the year before. 

Three Israeli films were included in the programme, including a couple of documentaries about the plight of the Hamas-captured hostages, to mark the largest participation of the country in any major film festival since 7 October. 

Tuttle and her team must have hoped that the storm had finally passed after the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect on 10 October 2025. But it didn’t.

Earlier this month, Strike Germany once again called for a boycott of the fest. 

“With continued lack of genuine response from Tuttle and the Berlinale team, it’s clear that in 2026 Berlinale remains committed to its irrelevance for film workers who oppose genocide,” their statement read. 

‘No to politics’

That controversy, however, was dwarfed by the hurricane of outrage that greeted the jury’s press conference on the opening day of the Berlinale. 

A journalist probed the issue of selective support for human rights and asked that, since the festival had shown solidarity to the people of Iran and Ukraine, “what was the jury’s view on the German government’s role as the main funder of the genocide in Gaza?”

Jury member and Polish producer Ewa Puszczynska dismissed the question. 

“Asking this question is a little bit unfair. We use the words ‘change the world,’ but of course, we are trying to talk to every single viewer,” she responded.

On the Palestine-Israel issue she said: “There are many other wars where genocide is committed and we do not talk about that.” 

The iconic German filmmaker and jury president Wim Wenders then delivered what would become the main talking point of the festival. 

“We have to stay out of politics. We are the counterweight of politics, the opposite of politics, we have to do the work of people, not the work of politicians,” he said. 

“Movies can change the world, not in a political way. No movie has really changed any politician’s idea, but you can change people’s idea of how they should live… Cinema has an incredible power of being compassionate and being empathetic,” he continued. 

The comments sparked immediate uproar. The following day, the alternative Egyptian film centre Cimatheque withdrew two films it represented from the Forum sidebar, responding to the Palestine Film Institute’s call to boycott the festival. 

“We felt uncomfortable participating when we read the Palestine Film Institute statement,” Tamer el-Said, the Berlin-based filmmaker and the centre’s founder, said.

“Wim Wenders’ remarks made us even more comfortable with the decision because they proved the double standards at the Berlin festival.”  

'To hear them say that art should not be political is jaw-dropping. It is a way of shutting down a conversation about a crime against humanity'

- Arundati Roy

The same day, Booker prize-winning Indian writer Arundhati Roy also withdrew from the festival in protest. 

“To hear them say that art should not be political is jaw-dropping. It is a way of shutting down a conversation about a crime against humanity,” she said, adding, “artists, writers and film-makers should be doing everything in their power to stop it”. 

Celebrated Palestinian actress Hiam Abbas condemned the “lack of courage” among people in the film world.  

In a lengthy statement defending Wenders and his jury, Tuttle wrote the next day: “Free speech is happening at the Berlinale. But increasingly, filmmakers are expected to answer any question put to them.

“They are criticised if they cannot compress complex thoughts into a brief soundbite when a microphone is placed in front of them.

“We do not believe there is a filmmaker screening in this festival who is indifferent to what is happening in this world."

Open letter

Yet Tuttle’s statement failed to quell the backlash. Shortly afterward, an open letter criticising the Berlinale’s silence on Gaza was released, signed by Hollywood stars and artists, including Javier Bardem, Tilda Swinton and Avi Mograbi, among many others.

“We call on the Berlinale to fulfil its moral duty and clearly state its opposition to Israel’s genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes against Palestinians,” the letter stated. 

Tuttle, once again, felt compelled to respond to the letter the following day. 

'We call on the Berlinale to fulfil its moral duty and clearly state its opposition to Israel’s genocide'

- Open letter to Berlinale organisers

“We recognize where this comes from – the depth of anger and frustration about the suffering of people in Gaza, and the urgency people feel to speak out and make their voices heard,” she told Screen Daily on 18 February 

“Not everyone wants to talk about this issue, as serious as it may be in their own lives. Some people want to come to the festival for other reasons,” she said.

“This clearly hasn’t worked for the activist campaign, who want us to say what they want us to say, and anything less than that is going to result in continued harassment and misinformation.”

Tuttle added that she was in the process of making sure those who signed the letter “really understand what they’ve signed” and that what they signed was not “fair or accurate”.

Her final interview laid bare the Berlinale’s core problem: an aging institution struggling to stay relevant. 

Wenders’ comments were mild - and hardly new - echoed by juries at other festivals, most recently Alexander Payne in Venice last September.

But the controversy didn’t exist in a vacuum.

It reflected long-standing anger at the German government’s support for Israel and its enabling of the Gaza genocide. 

Roughly 40 percent of the festival’s funding comes from the German federal government and the Berlin Senate. 

In all official communications, including post-screening discussions, the word “Palestine” is conspicuously absent; a mirror of Germany’s persistent refusal to recognise the state.

Contrary to Tuttle’s claim, questions about Gaza strike at the heart of what the Berlinale has always claimed to be: a progressive and political festival standing with the marginalised and oppressed worldwide. 

Political programming

The Berlinale’s programming has always reflected the mission of raising downtrodden voices and this year was no exception.

A major conundrum the Berlinale staff face relates to the limits of what they can do with the subject of Palestine and Gaza. 

This year’s line-up contained overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian films that underlined the suffering in Gaza while also staunchly condemning the brutality of the Israeli war machine. 

Abdallah Alkhatib’s award-winning Palestinian film Chronicles From The Siege offers a stark collection of portraits depicting life under the Israeli blockade. 

Israeli documentarian Anat Even reflects on the aftermath of 7 October and the carnage in Gaza in Collapse, mourning the lost promise of the kibbutz while critiquing the moral decay of Israeli society.

Lebanese director Marie-Rose Osta weaves a fantastical tale in Someday a Child, the Golden Bear-winning short, following an 11-year-old boy with special abilities who sets out to confront the Israeli warplanes that disturb his sleep. 

German visual artist Vika Kirchenbauer condemns Germany’s handling of Gaza and the police’s violent suppression of protesters in the short This Suffocating Now. 

Iranian filmmaker Nima Nassaj creates an essayistic short documentary, Fruits of Despair, exploring Israel’s violent campaign against Palestine before Iran itself became a target of Israeli aggression.

The festival’s programming has long been the Berlinale’s main signal of its shifting stance on Palestine - but beyond that, Tuttle and her team are handcuffed. 

Any official acknowledgement of Germany’s complicity in the genocide would be career suicide, exposing the team to legal risk and effectively barring them from most state-funded or state-affiliated projects.

Tuttle’s balancing act and failures

This year’s Berlinale curation was courageous, bound to provoke debate after the turbulence of recent years. 

Yet Tuttle has made some serious missteps that will shadow her tenure until real consequences are addressed.

They include her insistence on controlling the festival’s narrative, her framing of journalists who ask questions about Gaza as mere click-baiters, and her reluctance to offer a formal and concrete apology over the festival’s handling of Gaza over the past couple of years. 

Tuttle has repeatedly described the Berlinale as a democratic platform where anyone can speak freely. 

The reality, however, tells a different story, as Israel’s supporters continue to express unease over the prominence of Palestinian voices in Berlin. 

During a screening of Collapse, a former IDF soldier confronted director Anat Even, accusing her of airing Israel’s 'dirty laundry'

British critic and journalist John Bleasdale reported an incident on 20 February during the press conference for the American film Josephine, when a German journalist shouted down a question to Hollywood star Channing Tatum asking whether he had considered signing the aforementioned open letter, then went on to accuse the reporter of supporting Hamas.

During a screening of Collapse, a former IDF soldier confronted director Anat Even, accusing her of airing Israel’s “dirty laundry” and claiming that exposing the country’s transgressions only emboldens Hamas and fuels antisemitism.

At the awkward closing ceremony, a man reacted to the impassioned speech by director Abdallah Alkhatib, who had just won Best Film in the Perspectives competition and called for a “Free Palestine,” by shouting, “Free Palestine from Hamas”.

The visibly uncomfortable ceremony host Desiree Nosbusch immediately had to remind the viewers that the “artists’ personal views don’t necessarily reflect those of the Berlinale”. 

To put things in a broader context, no similarly heated exchanges have occurred at any of the world’s top festivals in Europe or the US over the past three years. 

That they continue to erupt in Berlin reflects Germany’s stuttering stance on Palestinian liberation - a stance that fully justifies the barrage of questions directed at the festival’s participating talents.

Expressions of unity

This year’s line-up, while strong in quality, was the festival’s least high-profile in decades, lacking both star power and major auteurs. 

The same applied to the largely anonymous juries - particularly the main competition - whose selections carried an air of desperation.

The fest’s mishandling of Gaza has clearly put off numerous filmmakers from participating in what was once the third-biggest film fair in the world. 

Severe budget cuts that are expected to increase in the next couple of years are placing the festival in a precarious position. 

Arab filmmakers, undeterred by a relentlessly hostile climate, have seized the festival as a platform to voice their political convictions, refusing to bow to the pressure to stay silent or shy away from contentious speeches.

Chronicles from the Siege, directed by Syrian-Palestinian filmmaker Abdallah Al-Khatib, was one of the only Syrian-Palestinian films in this year’s Berlinale programme. Al-Khatib is also known for directing the acclaimed documentary Little Palestine.

The film depicts the impact… pic.twitter.com/MdEOqBJpL5

— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) February 16, 2026

“Some people told me, maybe you have to be careful before you say what I want to say now, because you are a refugee in Germany,” director Alkhatib said upon receiving the Perspectives award at the closing ceremony. 

“There is so many red lines, but I don’t care. I care about my people, about Palestine. So I will say my final word to [the] German government, you are partners in the genocide in Gaza by Israel. 

“I believe you are intelligent enough to recognise this truth, but you choose to not care. Free Palestine - from now until the end of the world.”  

After winning the best short film prize, Marie-Rose Osta said: “I made a film about a child. With superpowers, who brings down two Israeli fighter jets, because their intrusive sounds wake him up from his sleep. 

“That is cinema. But in reality, children in all of Palestine and in my Lebanon do not have superpowers to protect them from Israeli bombs. 

“The ceasefire continues to be violated by Israel, both in Gaza and Lebanon.”

The closing ceremony overflowed with supportive speeches and a striking show of unity among Arab contenders and jury members alike. 

Arab filmmakers spoke openly and dauntlessly under the watchful eye of a regime that may never be held accountable for empowering the Zionist state. 

A familiar controversy

And in yet another case of deja vu, the speeches were met with a wave of violent antagonism from the German press and politicians, with Alkhatib in particular finding himself in an uneasy position. 

The minister of environment, Carsten Schneider, the sole government official to attend the Berlinale, left the closing ceremony and called Alkhatib’s speech unacceptable. 

The German commissioner for culture and media, Wolfram Weimer, called Alkhatib’s statement “false claims that are malicious and poison the political debate.”.

In popular blog Ruhrbarone, journalist and self-appointed antisemitism watchdog Stefan Laurin was vehement in his attack on Alkhatib. 

“And Alkhatib's threat? It brings to mind a puffing dwarf. With what does he intend to threaten? Leaving Germany, where he has lived since 2019? 

“Well, goodbye! That a future-existing Palestine will refuse money from Germany - considering it’s a certainty that it wouldn't be viable without foreign aid? The Federal Republic will survive that. 

“That his films won't be shown in Germany? Hardly anyone watches them anyway. That German films won't be screened at his fantasised future ‘wonderful film festival in Gaza’? 

“No one in Germany would care about the German films that would be shown there. A minor scandal, triggered by a minor filmmaker - nothing more.”

Journalist Ulf Poschardt told prominent channel Welt that "If the celebrated director now begins to build up the cultural business in the Gaza Strip, together with Hamas, I am happy.”

The Berlin mayor, Kai Wegner, told the newspaper Bild, Germany’s largest tabloid paper, that those presenting themselves as pro-Palestinian activists were not concerned with human rights.   

MP Alexander Hoffmann told the same newspaper that "genocide accusations, antisemitic failures and threats against Germany at the Berlinale are absolutely unacceptable. 

Filmmakers are once more finding themselves on the receiving end of ugly attacks from a polity that will stand by the Zionist state no matter what

“The repulsive scenes at the award ceremony underline the need to take a clear position and to classify antisemitism as a particularly serious case of sedition.”

In her closing speech of the fest, Tuttle said: “Criticism and speaking up is part of democracy, so is disagreement, and we respect people speaking out, because it takes a lot of courage to do it sometimes, and we don’t always agree with every claim that’s made about us.” 

The German political establishment and much of the media have once again demonstrated that this is not the case; filmmakers are once more finding themselves on the receiving end of ugly attacks from a polity that will stand by the Zionist state no matter what. 

In light of this week’s backlash, the question posed by Wim Wenders now feels all the more pertinent and urgent.

For Tuttle, the price of these repeated controversies is her stewardship of the festival, with numerous reports surfacing that her tenure might be coming to an end.

The Berlinale has become emblematic of a deeply toxic environment - one that may compel major filmmakers and the coveted Hollywood machine to steer clear of an event where cinema plays second fiddle to an exhausting political climate.

Frankly, who in their right mind would want to take part in such a mess?