\nCAIRO: The decision by an Egyptian film festival to honor an acclaimed French director accused of supporting Israel has sparked controversy in the country.<\/p>\n
\nThe\u00a0Cairo International Film Festival said this week that Claude Lelouche, 80, would be feted at the event next month.<\/p>\n
\nBut the decision has sparked a backlash from some Egyptian actors, directors and critics, with some even threatening to boycott the event.<\/p>\n
\nThey claim that Lelouche, an Oscar winner who has made more than 50 films, is overly sympathetic to Israel. But the festival organizers said that just because he travels to Israel, does not mean he can not be honored by Egypt.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cHe is known for his intransigence of the Israeli Zionist entity, and has made this clear hundreds of times,\u201d\u00a0Ahmed Kamal, the Egyptian actor and director, said.<\/p>\n
\nHe said he would boycott the festival and called on the event\u2019s president, Professor Mohamed Hafsi, to reverse the decision.<\/p>\n
\nWhile Kamal acknowledged the director\u2019s great achievements, he said standing up against Israel was more important.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cHe is part of the history of French and international cinema, but our position on the Zionist entity is not only in defense of the state of Palestine but also in defense of the state of Egypt.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nKamal said Lelouche has repeatedly declared that he considers Israel an example in resisting fear and hatred in the region.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nMalik Khoury, head of the film department at the American University in Cairo, said even fellow French director Jean-Luc Goddard has referred to Lelouche as a \u201cZionist.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n“Are we now at the stage of \u2018love Israel\u2019, while hundreds of artists from all over the world are united with the Palestinians and refuse to go or deal with the Zionist entity?”\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nEgypt is one of the only Arab counties with full diplomatic relations with Israel after the two countries signed a peace treaty in 1979.<\/p>\n
\nBut in recent years Palestinians have adopted a peaceful boycott movement to try and pressure Israel over its decades long occupation of Palestinian land. The boycott has included artistic figures and events.<\/p>\n
\nEgyptian film critic Yacoub El-Deeb described the decision to honor Lelouche as dangerous. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\u201cIt may be the beginning leading to Israel itself participating later in the festival,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\nThe festival organisers said they had checked through the interviews Lelouche had given to Israeli media on a recent visit and \u201cthat all come within the usual courtesy of artists when visiting any country.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\u201cSince the members of the Advisory Committee as individuals and the Cairo Festival as a cultural institution have stood throughout its history with the Palestinian cause and the rights of the Palestinian people, the Committee calls upon everyone to provide them with any document containing a political position declaring Claude Lelouche against the Palestinian cause or the rights of the Arab people, a signed statement, or any other form of political solidarity with the Israeli position,\u201d the organizers said.<\/p>\n
\nTheir position was backed by the famous Egyptian producer Mohamed Al-Adl.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWho knows his views on Zionism? Let\u2019s not take a stand. The man is a famous director, and like many others it\u2019s normal for him to go to Israel,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\nEgyptian film critic Youssef Sharif Rizkallah agreed.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cClaude is a great French filmmaker, has a real passion for movies,\u201d he said. \u201cHe is unprecedented in French cinema, preferring to follow his own aspirations rather than to catch up with Hollywood cinema through simple stories whose love is repeated and multiplied.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nLelouche was born in Paris in 1937 to an Algerian jewish father and a mother who converted to Judaism. His film \u00a0“A Man and a Woman”\u00a0won the\u00a0Palme d’Or\u00a0at the\u00a01966 Cannes Film Festival, and two\u00a0Oscars\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nThe Cairo International Film Festivalruns from Nov. 20 to Nov. 29.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Egypt film festival sparks protests over French director accused of Israel support CAIRO: The decision by an Egyptian film festival to honor an acclaimed French director accused of supporting Israel has sparked controversy in the country. The\u00a0Cairo International Film Festival said this week that Claude Lelouche, 80, would be feted at the event next month.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":19013,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}