Updated with more signatories: Reaction continues to The Zone of Interest director Jonathan Glazer’s acceptance speech after his film won the Oscar for Best International Feature Film this month.
Some 1,215 Jewish show business professionals now have signed a letter denouncing the filmmaker’s speech, in which he decried the “dehumanization” of the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas. See the updated full list below.
“We refute our Jewishness being hijacked for the purpose of drawing a moral equivalence between a Nazi regime that sought to exterminate a race of people, and an Israeli nation that seeks to avert its own extermination,” the letter states (read it in full in full below).
This list includes among its signatories Eli Roth and Amy Sherman-Palladino, Amy Pascal, Debra Messing, Gail Berman, Hawk Koch, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gary Barber, Lawrence Bender, Tovah Feldshuh and Rod Lurie.
You can watch Glazer’s speech here,...
Some 1,215 Jewish show business professionals now have signed a letter denouncing the filmmaker’s speech, in which he decried the “dehumanization” of the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas. See the updated full list below.
“We refute our Jewishness being hijacked for the purpose of drawing a moral equivalence between a Nazi regime that sought to exterminate a race of people, and an Israeli nation that seeks to avert its own extermination,” the letter states (read it in full in full below).
This list includes among its signatories Eli Roth and Amy Sherman-Palladino, Amy Pascal, Debra Messing, Gail Berman, Hawk Koch, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gary Barber, Lawrence Bender, Tovah Feldshuh and Rod Lurie.
You can watch Glazer’s speech here,...
- 3/20/2024
- by Erik Pedersen
- Deadline Film + TV
An open letter condemning Jonathan Glazer’s Zone of Interest Oscars acceptance speech has been signed by more than 450 Jewish Hollywood professionals.
The group consists of actors, executives, directors, creators, producers and representatives denouncing Glazer’s controversial comments made when accepting the Academy Award for best international film on March 10.
“We refute our Jewishness being hijacked for the purpose of drawing a moral equivalence between a Nazi regime that sought to exterminate a race of people, and an Israeli nation that seeks to avert its own extermination,” the letter reads.
In his acceptance at the 2024 Oscars, Glazer read from a prepared speech to thank his partners and then make a statement addressing the current Israel-Gaza conflict.
“All our choices were made to reflect and confront us in the present, not to say, ‘Look what they did then’; rather, ‘what we do now,’” Glazer said. “Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst.
The group consists of actors, executives, directors, creators, producers and representatives denouncing Glazer’s controversial comments made when accepting the Academy Award for best international film on March 10.
“We refute our Jewishness being hijacked for the purpose of drawing a moral equivalence between a Nazi regime that sought to exterminate a race of people, and an Israeli nation that seeks to avert its own extermination,” the letter reads.
In his acceptance at the 2024 Oscars, Glazer read from a prepared speech to thank his partners and then make a statement addressing the current Israel-Gaza conflict.
“All our choices were made to reflect and confront us in the present, not to say, ‘Look what they did then’; rather, ‘what we do now,’” Glazer said. “Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst.
- 3/18/2024
- by Zoe G Phillips
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
WGA West’s Middle Eastern Writers Committee Urges Hollywood To Be More Inclusive, Less Stereotypical
Members of the WGA West’s Middle Eastern Writers Committee are urging the film and television industry to be more inclusive and less stereotypical in its storytelling.
“Reach out to us. Get to know our work. And most of all, take more chances on us to both tell our own stories and contribute to the ones being crafted in writers rooms all over town,” they wrote Monday in an open letter to the industry. But they noted: “How can we get in the rooms to tell other stories if we’re not even being hired to tell our own?”
The group said they formed the committee “primarily on the basis of one disappointing fact. As reported in the Wgaw Inclusion Report of 2020, Middle Eastern writers are dead last, making up only 0.3% of employed writers. You read that right. 0.3%. That’s pretty close to 0%. Because of this, we find ourselves at a cultural inflection point,...
“Reach out to us. Get to know our work. And most of all, take more chances on us to both tell our own stories and contribute to the ones being crafted in writers rooms all over town,” they wrote Monday in an open letter to the industry. But they noted: “How can we get in the rooms to tell other stories if we’re not even being hired to tell our own?”
The group said they formed the committee “primarily on the basis of one disappointing fact. As reported in the Wgaw Inclusion Report of 2020, Middle Eastern writers are dead last, making up only 0.3% of employed writers. You read that right. 0.3%. That’s pretty close to 0%. Because of this, we find ourselves at a cultural inflection point,...
- 8/30/2021
- by David Robb
- Deadline Film + TV
Exclusive: Writers Guild of America West (Wgaw) is looking to boost visibility and champion Middle Easter voices with the newly formed Middle Eastern Writers Committee (Mewc).
The new committee will help bolster Middle Eastern writers within the film and television industry, while continuing to celebrate and promote accurate portrayals of Middle Eastern characters across the media landcape. To kick things off, Mewc has set their first event highlighting Middle Eastern representation between WGA members and a panel of guests featuring Ramy co-creator and star Ramy Youssef. The virtual event will take place Febraury 24 at 7Pm Pt.
The formation of the committee stems from the release of the guild’s 2020 Inclusion Report, which showed that, while most major non-white groups were underrepresented in TV and film relative to their share of the U.S. population, Middle Eastern writers had “almost no representation at all.” A mere 0.3% of working screen and TV writers identified as Middle Eastern.
The new committee will help bolster Middle Eastern writers within the film and television industry, while continuing to celebrate and promote accurate portrayals of Middle Eastern characters across the media landcape. To kick things off, Mewc has set their first event highlighting Middle Eastern representation between WGA members and a panel of guests featuring Ramy co-creator and star Ramy Youssef. The virtual event will take place Febraury 24 at 7Pm Pt.
The formation of the committee stems from the release of the guild’s 2020 Inclusion Report, which showed that, while most major non-white groups were underrepresented in TV and film relative to their share of the U.S. population, Middle Eastern writers had “almost no representation at all.” A mere 0.3% of working screen and TV writers identified as Middle Eastern.
- 2/23/2021
- by Dino-Ray Ramos
- Deadline Film + TV
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