Newspaper Article

Kevin Rollason, “Jewish group slams film fest: Promotes hatred, B'nai Brith says” (Winnipeg Free Press, Sept. 21, 2004, p.8)

A local film festival showing Palestinian and Jewish films is intended to promote hatred, B'nai Brith Canada said yesterday.

Karen Lazar, a spokeswoman for the national Jewish organization, says the Canada-Palestine Film Festival, which begins this Friday at the Winnipeg Film Group's Cinematheque Theater and runs until Sunday night, “is not an artistic festival, it's political and loaded.”

“From our perspective, it is one-sided …and it takes place on Yom Kippur, the holiest day for our people and I think that's deliberate.”

B'nai Brith says it has already registered its concerns with Mayor Sam Katz and Winnipeg police chief Jack Ewatski and has requested “additional security measures to be put in place to ensure the safety of the Jewish community.”

Lazar said they will not organize a protest of the screenings, but they want the public to know about the group's concerns.

“The films are not an educational experience showing both sides.   We think it's preposterous to say it's a balanced view.”

Paul Burrows, a festival spokesman, said the timing of the festival on the same weekend as Yom Kippur was unintentional and a mistake the organizers regret.

Burrows said they wanted the film festival to coincide as close as they could with the fourth anniversary of the Palestinian intifada, or uprising.

He said only after the theatre was booked did they realize it was Yom Kippur.

During the three days of the festival, which is sub-titled Images of Occupation and Resistance in Israel and Palestine, 12 films will be shown.   The films include Rana's Wedding , which won the Human Rights Watch Film Festival's 2003 Nestor Almendros Award for courage in film-making, and Like Twenty Impossibles , which had its international debut at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival.

The festival, being coordinated by the Winnipeg chapter of the Canada Palestine Support Network, is booked next for Calgary from Oct. 15 to Oct. 17.

Burrows said he disagrees with B'nai Brith's contention that the festival will promote hatred and divisiveness.

“They're entitled to their view, but I personally think it's nonsense,” he said.

Victor Jerrett-Enns, the Winnipeg Film Group's executive director, said the WFG simply rented out the theatre as it does to numerous community groups.

“All we ask is for all the films to be reviewed by the Manitoba Film Classification Board and they have been,” Jerrett-Enns said.

“We have only received two complaints and they were both citizens.”

The MFCB rated the films 14A, meaning they are suitable for people aged 14 years of age and older, and an adult must accompany a younger child.

E-mail: kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca