Screenwriter Arundhati Roy will not be attending the Berlin Film Festival this year after Jury president Wim Wenders suggested he and his fellow filmmakers should “stay out of politics.”
Roy was set to present her 1989 film “In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones” as part of the Berlinale’s Classics Section, but instead announced her decision to pull out of the festival on Friday due to the “Perfect Days” director’s comments about Israel and Gaza earlier this week. She further stated that she is “shocked and disgusted” over his stance, which she called “unconscionable.”
“To hear them say that art should not be political is jaw-dropping,” Roy said. “It is a way of shutting down a conversation about a crime against humanity even as it unfolds before us in real time – when artists, writers and film makers should be doing everything in their power to stop it.”
She continued, “If the greatest film makers and artists of our time cannot stand up and say so, they should know that history will judge them. I am shocked and disgusted.”
Wenders made his comments at the festival’s introductory press conference on Thursday: “If we make movies that are dedicatedly political, we enter the field of politics. But we are the counterweight of politics, we are the opposite of politics. We have to do the work of people, not the work of politicians.”
“No movie has really changed any politician’s idea, but you can change people’s idea of how they should live. Cinema has an incredible power of being compassionate and being empathetic. The news [is] not, politics [is] not empathetic. But movies are,” he added. “There’s a big discrepancy on this planet between people who want to live their lives and governments who have other ideas. I think films enter that discrepancy.”
Since then, Michelle Yeoh and Neil Patrick Harris have made similar headlines for avoiding political questions as part of Berlinale 2026.
Read Arundhati Roy full statement, below:
“‘In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones,’ a whimsical film that I wrote 38 years ago, was selected to be screened under the Classics section at the Berlinale 2026. There was something sweet and wonderful about this for me.
Although I have been profoundly disturbed by the positions taken by the German government and various German cultural institutions on Palestine, I have always received political solidarity when I have spoken to German audiences about my views on the genocide in Gaza. This is what made it possible for me to think of attending the screening of ‘Annie’ at the Berlinale.
This morning, like millions of people across the world, I heard the unconscionable statements made by members of the jury of the Berlin Film Festival when they were asked to comment about the genocide in Gaza. To hear them say that art should not be political is jaw-dropping. It is a way of shutting down a conversation about a crime against humanity even as it unfolds before us in real time – when artists, writers and film makers should be doing everything in their power to stop it.
Let me say this clearly: what has happened in Gaza, what continues to happen, is a genocide of the Palestinian people by the State of Israel. It 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.
If the greatest film makers and artists of our time cannot stand up and say so, they should know that history will judge them. I am shocked and disgusted.
With deep regret, I must say that I will not be attending the Berlinale.”
