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Elsa Keslassy
International Correspondent
@elsakeslassy See All
Courtesy of Getty Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid says he was “astonished” by the wave of support he received from Natalie Portman, Justine Triet, Jacques Audiard and hundreds of other film figures after the boycott campaign that led him to withdraw from Marseille’s FID Festival, where he had been invited as a juror. He was even more surprised to see his case turn, within days, into one of the most fiercely debated cultural flashpoints of the year.
In a wide-ranging interview with Variety, Lapid, who has lived in self-imposed exile in France since 2021, reflects on the boycott campaign that engulfed FID Marseille, the filmmakers who withdrew their works in protest of his invitation, and the open letters that followed in his defense. Far from casting himself as a casualty, Lapid argues the uproar became a distraction from the issues at the heart of the debate. “I never felt like a victim,” he says.
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