The Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid said he would not attend FID Marseille, an international film festival taking place in July, according to a report in Le Monde. Several directors who had planned to participate withdrew their films from the festival to protest the inclusion of Lapid, because they support a cultural boycott of Israel.
Lapid, 51, who has been living in France since 2021, was invited to serve on the festival jury. Tsveta Dobreva, director of the FID, told Le Monde: "We invited Nadav Lapid solely out of respect for his filmmaking. That is the only criterion at FID. Then I started receiving calls demanding that he be disinvited. At first, I didn't respond because I fully accepted our decision. But the pressure continued and intensified."
She said the festival considered alternate plans, such as that Lapid would present his first film, Policeman, at an event that would include a discussion and the launch of a book of interviews with Lapid published in French. But then activists called to boycott FID if Lapid were involved in the festival at all. "Selected filmmakers began withdrawing their films; in the end, about 10 of them did so,” she said.
Lapid told Le Monde he decided to withdraw to save the festival embarrassment. He is one of Israel’s leading filmmakers and is known for his biting criticism of the Netanyahu government, which is the subject of his latest film, Yes, which was released in 2025. His 2019 film, Synonyms, won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival, and his film, Ahed’s Knee, won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2021. Lapid has accepted money from the Israeli government-supported Israel Film Fund for several of his films, including Yes.
While he chose to bow out, he nonetheless criticized the festival’s handling of the controversy, telling the newspaper: "FID didn't realize it was facing such a campaign of threats. Maybe they should have accepted a bit more responsibility in a moment like this… For a year, it was my film Yes that was attacked. And now, suddenly, it was my mere presence that became unacceptable. I asked myself: 'What do they want exactly? That I stop making films? That I leave France? How far will this go?'"
Petition against the 'Campaign of intimidation'
A petition reportedly signed by some of the biggest names in the French film industry in support of Lapid taking part in the festival has been circulating and is expected to be published on Tuesday. Among those who are said to have signed are producers Saïd Ben Saïd and Judith Lou Lévy and directors Stéphane Demoustier and Mati Diop. The petition condemns the "campaign of intimidation" that targeted Lapid.
Israel’s Culture Minister Miki Zohar, one of Lapid’s fiercest opponents in Israel despite the fact that the ministry he heads supports Lapid’s work, said in a post on X: “Nadav Lapid doesn't understand that Israel's haters don't differentiate between us, no matter how much he tries to curry favor with them—they never saw him as one of their own, and he will always be, to them, a Jew from Israel. We must lift our heads in Jewish pride and bear our country's flag with strength. No film festival, no matter how prestigious, will break us, and certainly not make us ashamed of who we are. Am Yisrael Chai!”
Lapid noted in an interview with Ynet that Zohar “jumped on this case with great joy … But like in any good movie, it is worth it for the viewer to wait for the end.”
The filmmaker said he was convinced that the petition in support of him would help Israeli cinema. "There are those who want to tell the story of the whole world against us, like Mickey Zohar, who makes no great effort to hide his happiness,” he said on Ynet. “It's true that there are people who harass me because I'm Israeli, but the lesson for me is different - almost all of French cinema has joined this petition, and that puts everything in proportion."