The annual Toronto International Film Festival has found itself at the center of a media storm even before it opened. After announcing that the festival would celebrate Israeli cinema and Tel Aviv as part of its new City-to-City forum, a Canadian filmmaker withdrew his short documentary and a string of notables, including many Israelis, in the industry and in other professions signed a letter of protest. The letter stated that highlighting Tel Aviv was unwarranted at a time when Israeli is still violating Palestinian rights and occupying their land, and made the festival culpable to taking part in Israeli propaganda. The Israeli government has been trying to better Israel’s image through a “Brand Israel” campaign for which Toronto incidentally happens to be the first city targeted. The festival directors denied that their efforts to celebrate Tel Aviv, which turned a 100 this year, had anything to do “Brand Israel” or any Israeli government effort. The signatories never called for a boycott of the festival of any Israeli films or filmmakers, but were simply protesting the effort to celebrate Tel Aviv which is perceived as whitewashing Israeli crimes behind a facade of Tel Aviv liberalism. They stated just that in their declaration:

We do not protest the individual Israeli filmmakers included in City to City, nor do we in any way suggest that Israeli films should be unwelcome at TIFF. However, especially in the wake of this year’s brutal assault on Gaza, we object to the use of such an important international festival in staging a propaganda campaign on behalf of what South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, and UN General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann have all characterized as an apartheid regime.

The list of signatories eventually grew to over 2,000 {though one person, Jane Fonda, who is apparently an actress, seemed to half-erase her name after being attacked by a pro-Israeli group for signing the letter), and, again, although the word “boycott” never appeared pro-Israeli groups nonetheless portrayed it that way and started their counter-protest:

A number of Hollywood stars circulated a letter Tuesday protesting a petition calling for a boycott [again, this isn’t true] of the Toronto International Film Festival over a Tel Aviv-themed event. The letter, which appeared simultaneously in the Los Angeles Times and the Toronto Star was signed, among others, by Jerry Seinfeld, Sacha Baron Cohen, Natalie Portman, Jason Alexander and Lisa Kudrow.

And so it goes on, and all this is a larger debate about Israel - one new to America - that will continue long after all the red carpets have been rolled up at Toronto.

In the meantime, it turns out at that the festival directors were lying about not working with the Israeli government:

...mayor of Tel Aviv just confirmed in an interview with a Canadian paper that film festival is part of Brand Israel campaign:”He said that while the City to City program was initiated by the festival, the Israeli ministry of foreign affairs was involved as part of its Brand Israel media and advertising campaign, which was launched last year.”

That lines up with this piece, which focuses on a letter critical of the film festival that raised the issue of donors‘ influence over the festival’s purposes. Obvious, I know, but:

The open letter points out that in 2008, “the Israeli government and Canadian partners Sidney Greenberg of Astral Media, David Asper of Canwest Global Communications and Joel Reitman of MIJO Corporation launched ‘Brand Israel,’ a million dollar media and advertising campaign aimed at changing Canadian perceptions of Israel.”

An August 28, 2008, article in the Canadian Jewish News, the protest letter explains, “quotes Israeli consul general Amir Gissin as saying that Toronto would be the test city for a promotion that could then be deployed around the world. According to Gissin, the culmination of the campaign would be a major Israeli presence at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival.”

That makes TIFF officially Israeli and Zionist propaganda which is bought off by Zionist-supporting money (Canada has changed) rather than a real film festival which it aspires to be (in any case, Toronto will never be Cannes). And even Roger Ebert, the doyen of the film industry, now supports the protest after initially opposing it in light of the new revelation. First he wrote this:

The protest is misguided and destructive. For what it’s worth, I believe the Palestinians deserve a homeland, and that Israel’s treatment of them has not been worthy of a nation that was itself founded as a homeland. But the artists of a nation cannot be fairly held responsible for the politics of that nation. All “sister cities” programs have a similar objective, to increase person-to-person contact with people from different lands. The City-to-City program, featuring filmmakers based in Tel Aviv, doesn’t link Canada and Israel, but simply spotlights recent work from a center of much recent cinematic achievement.

And then a day later he added this:

I’m writing this the day after first posting this entry. I now regret it. The point I make about artists is perfectly valid but I realize I wasn’t prepared with enough facts about the events leading up to the Festival’s decision to showcase Tel Aviv in the City-to-City section. I thought of it as an innocent goodwill gesture, but now realize it was part of a deliberate plan to “re-brand” Israel in Toronto, as a pilot for a larger such program. The Festival should never have agreed to be used like this. It was naive for the plan’s supporters to believe it would have the effect they hoped for.