At the 79th Cannes Film Festival, which opened on May 12, considered the most prestigious festival in the world, anti-Israel sentiments were expressed by several participants, while the Iranian regime and its brutal executions of protesters and persecution of filmmakers were barely mentioned.
While Israel was being criticized, there were no Israeli filmmakers there to give their perspective. In the past, Israeli films have been prominently featured in the Un Certain Regard section, the short film categories, the Main Competition, and other sections, often winning major prizes.
But this year, the Israeli presence is limited to two Russian-born Israeli actors, Anatoliy Beliy and Vladimir Friedman, who appear in the new film, Minotaur, by Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev, which is premiering in the Main Competition, as well as the participation of Israeli cinematographer Giora Bejach, who worked on the French film, La Bataille de Gaulle: L’âge de fer, which is being shown out of competition.
Off the record, several Israeli directors told me their recent films had been rejected at Cannes. One said his new movie had been turned down by “every film festival you’ve ever heard of,” even though his previous movies had had world premieres at prestigious film festivals.
While there was no official boycott or blacklisting of Israelis this year, Israeli films were not part of the festival. But Paul Laverty, a screenwriter on the Feature Film Jury at Cannes, claimed that people in the film industry who have spoken against Israel since the war between Gaza and Israel began in 2023 have been “blacklisted,” a claim that is extraordinarily easy to disprove.
The BAFTA-winning Laverty noted at a press conference that the poster for the 79th Cannes Film Festival featured an image of Susan Sarandon (with her co-star Geena Davis) from the iconic film Thelma & Louise.
“Isn’t it fascinating to see some of them, like Susan Sarandon, Javier Bardem, and Mark Ruffalo, blacklisted because of their views in opposing the murder of women and children in Gaza?" Laverty said. "Shame on Hollywood people who do that. My respect and total solidarity to them. They’re the best of us, and good luck to them. I just hope we don’t get bombed now, because we’ve got this poster in Cannes.”
More Cannes attendees criticize Israel
But Cannes was not bombed, and others there spoke against Israel, including Hannah Einbinder, an actress best known for the series Hacks, who was at the festival to promote her latest film, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.
Asked if she feared losing work because of her criticism of Israel, Einbinder was quoted in Deadline as saying that the risk was worth it to her: “I am under no impression that my one small career could ever measure up in comparison to even one human life.”
But despite Einbinder’s declaration that she was willing to sacrifice her “small career” to save a life, when you look at the careers of all these artists in recent years, there’s ample evidence that, if anything, criticizing Israel gives careers a boost. Let’s look at the careers of the actors Laverty mentioned – Susan Sarandon, Mark Ruffalo, and Javier Bardem – as well as Hannah Einbinder, since they intensified their criticism of Israel over the past three years.
In 2025, Einbinder won a Best Supporting Actress Emmy (out of two nominations she has received since the war began) for Hacks, a Critics Choice Award, and several other critics’ awards, and received two Golden Globe nominations.
Susan Sarandon, who claims she was dropped by a talent agency for speaking out about the war, has four upcoming projects listed on IMDb. That’s four more than two other Oscar-winning actresses her age, Sally Field and Cher.
Mark Ruffalo has been nominated for an Oscar and two Golden Globes since 2023. He has six upcoming roles, including as the Hulk in the new Spider-Man movie.
Javier Bardem was nominated for a Golden Globe for Supporting Actor for a TV role in Monster in 2025. He has roles in six upcoming movies and series, including the lead in the television series remake of Cape Fear for Apple TV, which Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese executive-produced.
Where would these actors be if pro-Israel loyalists had not supposedly hindered their careers? Would Bardem have 12 upcoming roles, instead of six, and would he be working not only with Spielberg and Scorsese but also with George Lucas and James Cameron? Is it a sign of Israel’s power in Hollywood that Einbinder has only won a single Emmy for her performance on Hacks, and not two?
And if Israel’s supporters have so much control over Hollywood, why has Israel had 10 nominations in the Best International Feature Oscar category without a single win, the record for nominations without a win?
In addition to Israel, the currently paused war between Israel and Iran, and Iran’s brutal crackdown on protesters in the winter, during which an estimated 30,000 were killed, and the regime’s almost-daily executions of dissidents, were discussed at Cannes briefly.
Iranian director Asghar Farhadi has a new film in the Main Competition at Cannes, Parallel Stories, an international film starring Isabelle Huppert. Farhadi, who has won two Oscars for the Iranian movies A Separation and The Salesman, and the Cannes Grand Prix for A Hero, is one of the few serious Iranian filmmakers who have not faced severe government persecution.
He leaves Iran to make movies abroad, such as Parallel Stories, Everybody Knows, and The Past, and returns home, facing no censure. His Iranian movies depict small injustices and localized corruption and may be perceived as mildly critical of local governments, but they do not openly attack the policies of Iran’s Supreme Leader or address issues that have sparked protests, such as the “Woman. Life. Freedom” movement against forced hijab.
Speaking at a press conference at Cannes last week, Farhadi addressed the killings of protesters by the government, but only after first decrying the deaths of civilians killed in attacks by the US and Israel, which he called “two tragic events”: “One of these events was the death of a number of innocent people, children, members of the civilian population who died in the war.
And before this war, we had the death of a number of demonstrators, people who went to the streets to protest, and they were equally innocent but were massacred. These two events are extremely painful and will never be forgotten.” He called the deaths of civilians “murder” and said, “Any murder is a crime.”
While he did mention the massacre of demonstrators by the government, his words were too little, too late for many in the Iranian diaspora, who expressed their feelings on social media. Human rights activist Nima Far spoke for many, saying on X/Twitter: “While protesters in Iran are tortured, shot, and hanged for simply demanding freedom, Farhadi carefully lumps everything together into one abstract, depoliticized package of ‘tragic events’ and ‘painful killings.’ This is not courage. This is calculated ambiguity from a man who knows exactly how far he can go without naming the Islamic Republic as a criminal, execution-running regime. He spoke about ‘the death of innocent people, children, members of the civilian population who died in the war’ and ‘the death of a number of demonstrators who went to the streets to protest’ as if these are two interchangeable tragedies falling from the sky. He frames executions, war casualties, and massacred protesters as morally equivalent and refuses to assign responsibility to any side.”
Far went on to say, “The same regime that lit the region on fire is also signing execution orders, running torture chambers, and ordering live fire on protesters. By equating all deaths, Farhadi blurs the line between victim and perpetrator and turns systematic state terror into a generic tragedy where no one is responsible... This is especially obscene because he is speaking from complete safety. He lives, works, and premieres films in the West.”
He also noted that Farhadi receives funding for his films from the Doha Film Institute in Qatar, and said that, “Iranians do not need another famous man on a French stage to tell them ‘any murder is a crime.’ They need people with platforms to say clearly that the Islamic Republic is running an industrial machine of execution and repression and must be confronted, not politely folded into a vague ‘cycle of violence.’”
There have been Iranian filmmakers who have spoken forcefully against the regime and made films explicitly critical of it, notably Jafar Panahi, whose movie, It Was Just an Accident, won the Palme d’Or, the top prize, at Cannes last year. He was sentenced by the Iranian government in absentia to a year in prison in Iran for “propaganda activities.”
Mehdi Mahmoudian, who was nominated for an Oscar for his screenplay for Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident, was arrested by the Iranian government in January and held in jail for 17 days.
Other Iranian directors, including Mahmoud Rasoulof, the director of the film The Seed of the Sacred Fig, have had to flee Iran after the government ordered their arrest.
But Farhadi did not speak in support of his persecuted colleagues at Cannes this year, and it is unlikely that he or anyone else will. You can expect to hear more about Israel and Gaza, though.