There will be an investigation into the on-stage criticism of Israel's bombing of Gaza during Berlin's annual film festival, the Berlinale, over the weekend, Germany's culture minister said on Monday.
Claudia Roth said Mayor Kai Wegner and the city's government, who share responsibility for the Berlinale, "will now investigate the incidents at the award ceremony."
The aim is to find out whether the Berlinale did or did not live up to its claim of being a place for diversity, different perspectives and dialogue, the minister said.
Roth also wants to clarify "how it can be ensured in future that the Berlinale is a place that is free from hatred, hate speech, anti-Semitism, racism, hostility towards Muslims and all forms of misanthropy."
In an awards ceremony concluding the Berlinale, Palestinian filmmaker Basel Adra accepted an award for his documentary about the West Bank and called on Germany to stop sending weapons to Israel, in remarks that were met with applause and cheers from the audience.
"It is very hard for me to celebrate when there is tens of thousands of my people being slaughtered and massacred by Israel in Gaza," said Adra, whose film "No Other Land" depicts the Israeli settler displacement of Palestinians in villages in the West Bank.
During the awards ceremony on Saturday evening, several other filmmakers criticized Israel over the bombing of Gaza, which has seen more than 29,600 people killed, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-controlled health authority in the strip.
None of the filmmakers mentioned the 1,200 people that Palestinian Hamas militants and others killed in Israel on October 7 or the some 240 people they kidnapped, which provoked the current war.
