Arundhati Roy withdraws from Berlin Film Festival amid Gaza row

Award-winning writer Arundhati Roy said Friday (February 13, 2026) she was withdrawing from the Berlin Film Festival over jury Booker Prize winning author Arundhati Roy has announced that she will not attend the Berlin International Film Festival due to the “unconscionable statements” made by members of the festival jury about “the genocide in Gaza”. Ms. Roy was scheduled to attend the festival for the screening of her 1989 film In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones under the Classics section. According to a statement published in The Wire on Friday (February 13, 2026), The God of Small Things author said that “to hear the jury say that art should not be political is jaw-dropping”. “This morning, like millions of people across the world, I heard the unconscionable statements made by members of the jury of the Berlin film festival when they were asked to comment about the genocide in Gaza. “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 even as it unfolds before us in real time – when artists, writers and film makers should be doing everything in their power to stop it,” Ms. Roy said in the statement. This year’s jury is headed by German filmmaker Wim Wenders and includes American director-producer Reinaldo Marcus Green, Japanese filmmaker Hikari, Nepalese director Min Bahadur Bham, South Korean actor Bae Doona, Indian director-producer Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, and Polish filmmaker Ewa Puszczyńska. At a press conference ahead of the festival’s formal opening on Thursday, jury president and German director Wim Wenders was asked about his views on “Germany’s support of the genocide in Gaza” and the selective treatment of human rights”, to which he said filmmakers “have to stay out of politics”. “If we made movies that are dedicatedly political, we enter the field of politics. But we are the counterweight to politics. We are the opposite of politics. We have to do the work of people and not the work of politicians,” the Perfect Days director said. Ms. Puszczyńska, who was the first to respond, said that the question was “a bit unfair.” “Of course, we are trying to talk to people - every single viewer - to make them think, but we cannot be responsible for what their decision would be to support Israel or the decision to support Palestine,” she said. “There are many other wars where genocide is committed, and we do not talk about that. So this is a very complicated question and I think it’s a bit unfair asking us what do you think, how we support, not support, talking to our governments or not.” Ms. Roy, in her statement, criticised the “genocide of the Palestinian people by the State of Israel”, while calling the U.S. and Germany “complicit in the crime”. “Let me say this clearly: what has happened in Gaza, what continues to happen, is a genocide of the Palestinian people by the State of Israel. It is supported and funded by the governments of the