Film industry professionals vehemently argue against plans to fund commercial movies over arthouse fare, calling it ‘Miri Regev 2’
Actors, filmmakers, directors and film industry professionals have banded together to protest a film industry reform planned by Culture Minister Miki Zohar.
In a video released Sunday on social media, they denounced Zohar’s plan as “Miri Regev 2,” a reference to the former culture minister’s cuts to funding for films critical of Israel.
It is seen by professionals as an effort by Israel’s right-wing government to silence liberal voices and limit the opportunities to hear non-mainstream perspectives.
“This reform tries to extinguish all critical discourse and discussion,” said director Joseph Cedar, at an emergency conference held Sunday during the Jerusalem Film Festival. “Critical films tell the truth, and in most of these critical films that comes from a lot of love for Israel.”
Producer and former Israel Film Fund executive director Katriel Schory added that the reform makes little sense, since ticket sales “is a parameter that can’t be predicted.”
Schory argued that if the reform goes forward, there will be few Israeli films being made a year or two from now.
In the protest video, familiar Israeli faces such as Sasson Gabbay, Dana Ivgy, Noa Koler, Gila Almagor, Alma Zack, Esti Zakheim cite film favorites such as “The Band’s Visit” and “Afula Express,” award-winning movies that shed light on aspects of the Israeli experience.
“As Israel fights on all fronts, the culture minister announced a war against the Israeli film industry,” actors say in the 95-second clip.
“Miri started and this, and Miki is completing it,” reads the tagline in the video, referring to previous reforms led by Regev, who strived to limit funding to films that were critical of Israel.
Zohar said Sunday that the Israeli actors who appeared in the clip were “grossly misled in favor of a false campaign.”
“I am promoting the film industry to new heights,” he wrote in an official response to the protest video. “The film industry in Israel has not been growing for several years and I say this with a heavy heart.”
He said industry professionals need to study the changes being suggested in the reform, which include opportunities for film funds to produce high-budget films, documentaries, debut films and short films.
“I believe that budgeting for movies that Israelis don’t watch is a violation of the fair distribution of public funds,” said Zohar. The money being poured into the industry from public coffers must ultimately benefit the taxpayer, he insisted.
Professionals said the new scoring system that the reform seeks to enact would create unhealthy competition between the various film funds, leading them to chase commercial films that garner large audiences while abandoning genres that help broaden the telling of Israel’s story.
“The minister does not want artistic cinema, but only commercial and entertainment films,” charged director Tal Granit.
Granit pointed to Talya Lavie’s award-winning 2014 film “Zero Motivation” as an example of a feature film that was originally created as arthouse cinema and turned out to be a commercial success, as were several of Joseph Cedar’s films that brought in over a million viewers.
“We give back to the public not with money and tickets, but with the enrichment of Israeli culture,” said Granit.
More than half a dozen Israeli film industry associations are banded together in the fight. They claim that Zohar and his staff aren’t researching or discussing the planned reform with industry professionals, and lack a real understanding of the devastating consequences it would have on the future of Israeli film.
The battle over the planned reform follows six months in which the approved 2024 funding for the local film industry has been frozen, creating additional hardships after nine months of war, with many professionals affected by reserve army duty, bereavement or displacement from their homes amid fighting in the south and north.
“Israel is at war, there are still 120 hostages in Gaza, the north is burning, the whole country is being shelled, hundreds of thousands are still struggling to recover from the October 7 disasters, but what Miki Zohar wants to do right now is to change the Cinema Law,” wrote members of the Directors Guild.
“It’s the same cinema that produced so many achievements and successes in the last 20 years. We call on the culture minister to freeze these destructive moves before the entire industry is destroyed.”
Source: Times of Israel
