Hollywood has rectified its response to the attack suffered by Palestinian filmmaker Hamdan Ballal in the West Bank after the pressure exerted by more than 600 members of the Academy who had signed a joint letter expressing their disappointment with the equidistant initial statement published by the Academy, which denounced the attack on Ballal indirectly without appoint Other Land ‘.
“We sincerely apologize to Mr. Ballal and all the artists who felt dissatisfied with our previous statement and we want to make it clear that the Academy condemns this type of violence anywhere in the world,” says the statement cited by Heraldo. The Academy condemns the “brutal attack by Israel” and the “suppression of freedom of expression under any circumstance.”
Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem were among the more than 600 members of the United States Film Academy signed by a joint letter by condemning Hollywood’s “lack of support” to Hamdan Ballal, the Palestinian filmmaker awarded this year with an Oscar that this week has been kidnapped, assaulted and finally released by Israeli forces in the West Bank.
In its statement, the Academy alluded to the attack suffered by Ballal indirectly, without directly appointing the filmmaker or the documentary that has co-directed. In addition, he stressed that “the Academy represents about 11,000 members around the world with very diverse perspectives.”
Cruz and Bardem, among others, the academy’s response to this “brutal assault” suffered by Ballal seemed insufficient. Therefore, they signed an alternative statement, in which they argued that “it is indefensible that an organization recognizes a film with a prize the first week of March and then does not defend their filmmakers only a few weeks later.”
In the text, the signatories highlighted the “extreme risks” to which the documentaries “to enlighten the world” are exhibited, promised to continue taking care of Ballal and his team and announced that “we will not walk with surroundings when the security of our fellow artists is at stake.”
