Alexander Rodnyansky Pulls Doc From IDFA Following Move To Bar Israeli State-Backed Bodies & Films

Ukrainian producer and director Alexander Rodnyansky has pulled his work Notes of a True Criminal from the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) in response to its decision to exclude Israeli state-backed organizations and films from this year’s edition.

“My film is not Israeli and neither am I. I am Ukrainian and my decision is based not on my nationality but on the principles I have held my entire life. It is my firm conviction that you cannot judge a nation and that we judge people by their actions, not by their passports,” Rodnyansky wrote on Instagram.

IDFA has stoked debate with its decision to bar Israel’s publicly funded DocAviv Festival, CoPro – The Israeli Content Marketing Foundation and state broadcaster Kan as well as any films with Israeli state funding amid international condemnation of Israel’s military operation in Gaza.

The move has been greeted with dismay from Israel’s mostly left-leaning documentary community, which has traditionally had a strong presence at the event regarded as Europe’s biggest documentary festival, running this year from November 13-23.

Rodnyansky highlighted the fact that Israeli filmmakers have been at the forefront of challenging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government’s actions in Gaza and beyond.

“Israeli filmmakers are known for their strong political opinions which often oppose government and military policies, and practices, as Israel is a democratic country,” he wrote.

“These institutions IDFA is boycotting are publicly funded and the funds are mostly distributed by independent committees. The government doesn’t actually back the majority of documentaries made with public funds – in fact in many cases the government has tried to censor documentaries made with public funds – the same voices of dissent and discussion the IDFA is censoring.”

IDFA artistic director Isabel Arrate Fernandez explained to Deadline last week that the decision to exclude Israeli state-backed bodies and works was in keeping with the festival’s new “Principles and Guidelines.”

These protocols posted on the IDFA website state that films and professionals can come from countries where freedom of expression is under pressure or where governments commit human rights violations, but if they have demonstrable ties to governments that contribute to serious human rights violations, they will not be welcome.

“Banning institutions based on the fact that they receive public funds is a duplicitous practice. It’s a hypocritical loophole exploited for political purposes because the universal reality of our industry is that in smaller markets, be it Eastern Europe or the Middle East, many film institutions cannot survive without some form of financial aid from the public,” responded Rodnyansky.
⠀
“Israeli anti-war films such as Lebanon, Foxtrot, Waltz with Bashir, Synonyms, Ahed’s Knee and Yes — were made with money from the state of Israel. This doesn’t make them less powerful.”

Notes of a True Criminal, exploring how key events in Ukraine’s history have affected Rodnyansky and his family throughout the generations, world premiered Out of Competition in Venice and was due to play in the Best of Fests section in IDFA.

It marks a return to the director’s chair and documentary for Kyiv-born Rodnyansky, who is best known as a prolific producer of films such as Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Loveless and Leviathan and the more recent feature Orphan by László Nemes.

IDFA’s stance on Israel follows in the wake of the launch of a pledge in September, signed by more than 1,800 actors and other film professional including stars such as Emma Stone, Ava DuVernay, Mark Ruffalo and Javier Bardem, to boycott Israeli-state funded entities, suggesting they were “implicated in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people.”

Arrate Fernandez told Deadline that the high-profile petition was not the catalyst for its move to bar Israeli state-backed bodies and films. 

Rodnyansky drew attention to a recent legal warning sent out by UK Lawyers for Israel over an industry boycott of Israeli film institutions calling it is a breach of the UK’s Equality Act, saying it creates a precedent of the exclusion of individuals and organizations based solely on their nationality, ethnicity and religion.
⠀
“British law may not be applicable to any country but the principle behind it is. It’s an idea that people or institutions cannot be judged based on nationalities. It is a principle that denies the idea of collective guilt. It’s as simple as that,” said Rodnyansky.

IDFA has been grappling with the implications of the intensification of the Israel-Palestine conflict since its 2023 edition. It was one of the first film festivals to take place in the aftermath of the Hamas terror attacks on Southern Israel on October 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 people and resulted in another 251 being taken hostage.

The IDFA opened a month later as Israel intensified its bombing campaign on Gaza, which has since killed more than 67,000 people, injured another 170,000 and razed the Palestinian territory to the ground, prompting accusations of genocide that Israel has strongly rejected.

It was a tumultuous edition. Israeli film and TV bodies, including DocAviv and CoPro, published an open letter accusing then-artistic director Orwa Nyrabia of endorsing the annihilation of the state of Israel after he was seen applauding pro-Palestinian protesters with a banner bearing the slogan “From the river to the sea,” while Palestinian filmmakers withdrew their films when IDFA issued a statement of apology, saying he had not seen the writing.

Two years on, against the backdrop of a fragile Israel-Hamas ceasefire, the conflict is continuing to resonate strongly at the festival.