Arundhati Roy ‘shocked’ by jury’s Gaza remarks, quits Berlin film festival

Jury chair Wim Wenders said filmmakers ‘have to stay out of politics’ when asked about German support for Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza.Published On 14 Feb 2026Indian author Arundhati Roy has announced that she is withdrawing from the Berlin International Film Festival after what she described as “unconscionable statements” by its jury members about Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.Writing in India’s The Wire newspaper, Roy said she found recent remarks from members of the Berlinale jury, including its chair, acclaimed director Wim Wenders, that “art should not be political” to be “jaw-dropping”.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4Israel used weapons in Gaza that made thousands of Palestinians evaporatelist 2 of 4Which countries made the biggest deals with Israel in 2025?list 3 of 4Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’: Who has joined, who hasn’t – and whylist 4 of 4Germany’s Merz meets Netanyahu under shadow of Israel’s war on Gazaend of list“It is a way of shutting down a conversation about a crime against humanity even as it unfolds before us in real time,” wrote Roy, the author of novels and nonfiction, including The God of Small Things.“I am shocked and disgusted,” Roy wrote, adding that she believed “artists, writers and filmmakers should be doing everything in their power to stop” the war in Gaza.“Let me say this clearly: what has happened in Gaza, what continues to happen, is a genocide of the Palestinian people by the Israel" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="30359" data-entity-type="organization">State of Israel,” she wrote.The war is “supported and funded by the governments of the United States and Germany, as well as several other countries in Europe, which makes them complicit in the crime,” she added.During a panel to launch the festival on Thursday, a journalist asked the jury members for their views on the German government’s “support of the genocide in Gaza” and the “selective treatment of human rights” issues.German filmmaker Wim Wenders, who is the chair of the festival’s seven-member jury, responded, saying that filmmakers “have to stay out of politics”.“If we made movies that are dedicatedly political, we enter the field of politics. But we are the counterweight to politics. We are the opposite of politics. We have to do the work of people and not the work of politicians,” Wenders said.