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.

The director of “Yes,” described by Variety as a “blistering attack on Israeli nationalism,” denounces the growing reluctance of major cultural institutions to finance or program films tackling the Israel-Palestine conflict. While international festivals routinely champion dissident filmmakers from countries such as Iran and Russia, Lapid argues they become far more wary when Israel is involved. “It’s very easy to be brave when there’s no danger,” he says, claiming festivals risk little in backing Iranian dissidents because “there aren’t many mullahs at the festival gates,” while criticism of Russia generally unfolds within a broad consensus. The Israel-Palestine conflict, by contrast, divides societies and institutions alike, and festival organizers have become “terrified” about protests and political fallout, imagining “catastrophes for themselves,” before choosing “the comfortable option: let’s talk about something else.” By the way, the same words work for many distributors.

Yet, Lapid rejects the idea that the boycott targeting him stems from antisemitism, framing it instead as a “state of mind” born of horror, the lack of political sanctions against Israel and a search for moral purity. For him, the campaign was counterproductive precisely because it diverted attention away from the war in Gaza and from the political forces he sees as the real beneficiaries of such divisions.

Lapid also pushes back against assumptions surrounding the financing of “Yes,” stressing that the Israel Film Fund, which backed the film, is currently an independent body rather than a government instrument. He notes that the fund has long supported films sharply critical of Israeli policy, including his own, even as Israel’s culture minister publicly attacked “Yes” and vowed he would never again receive public money. But he also warns that the fund’s independence is increasingly fragile amid what he terms Israel’s ongoing “fascistization.” “In a week or two, it may no longer be true,” he says of artistic freedom.

More broadly, Lapid argues that the controversy around “Yes” has exposed a crisis in the financing and distribution of politically charged cinema, including in Europe. “Against its will, the film revealed a great deal about the state of cinema,” he says.

As for his own future, Lapid remains defiant, even as sources of financing and festival platforms risk becoming scarcer. “As long as I have something to say, I’ll keep making films,” he says. “I’ll keep trying to touch the fire — I was born where it’s always burning.”

News of this boycott and the letters from French and international talent in support of you have generated huge interest. Were you surprised by the reaction?

Very. I was astonished by the scale — it was everywhere, in France, in the United States. I didn’t expect it and didn’t aspire to it. It wasn’t a move on my part; I’d gladly have done without it.

Once it blew up, did you hear from the festival?

Yes. I think they ended up signing the open letter, too. They tried to sense which way the wind was blowing — a bit like a cartoon character caught between two dangers. They understood that hosting certain guests is complicated, and at the same time they were frightened by the pressure. Now I think they’re trying to make up for a certain lack of determination. Could they fix it — reschedule the masterclass, screen the film again? I don’t think that’s the question. I don’t believe it was the cancellation of my masterclass that caused all this noise — and I’d have no desire to talk about mise-en-scène in an atmosphere like this. A week has passed. When it happened it was crushing, but a lot of water has since flowed under the bridge. In any case, I never felt like a victim. I don’t like filmmakers taking themselves too easily for victims. When some boycotters complain they don’t get enough press, that’s victimization too. I’m solid, I was well supported, and I have no appetite for crying out in pain. For me, the real question is what lesson to draw.

So what’s the lesson from all this for you?

That we should all be united by the same urgency: the catastrophe happening right now in Palestine, in Israel, in Gaza, and the rise of the far right almost everywhere. That emergency obliges all of us — critical filmmakers, activists, big and small festivals — to be more courageous. Yet the big festivals are often extremely fearful. Faced with the most burning conflict of our time, they adopt an ostrich attitude: they look away and say they don’t want the noise falling on their heads. That’s narcissism. They protect the well-being of their festival — but the festival isn’t the subject. The subject is cinema, the world, the truth. They never understood their role.

These festivals have no problem programming Iranian or Russian dissidents. But the moment it touches Israel, it’s different. Why?

The cultural boycott is, for me, a complicated story — I’m not categorically opposed to it. But it’s been hugely reinforced by the near-absence of any real sanctions on Israel. While we debate my masterclass at the FID, the biggest arms fair in the world warmly receives Israeli dealers showing off products whose effectiveness they’ve just demonstrated in Gaza and Lebanon. That puts everything back in proportion: we struggle over 30,000 articles about something marginal while the real horror unfolds without opposition — and the institutions manufacture a false silence that only stokes the anger.

Would more films like “Yes” in competition at festivals raise the level of debate?

It might come with sharp reactions, but it’s always better that these things happen than that they’re muted. And as for the activists — I have trouble even saying “pro-Palestinian,” because what does that mean in this context? Cancelling my master class is a pro-Palestinian gesture? I’ve been terrified for years by what’s happening in Palestine and I took part in political activity, demonstration in the territories, I’m not try to glorify myself in anyway and of course you never do enough. I’ve always believed Israel should be sanctioned and I declared it in interviews from the first time someone handed me a mic, and I’ve always used the words apartheid and genocide, because I believe them. But collapsing into a debate about purity is distressing. There’s an obsession with purity instead of courage or urgency — “there’s such-and-such a percentage of funding, or there isn’t” — while we share more or less the same ideas. If I’d been able to talk with the people who pulled their films from FID Marseille, we’d have found we agree on 99.9%. What gets all the attention is the duel between me and a few of them. I’m grateful to the film world that rallied for me, but I find it sad it doesn’t rally as much for genuine reasons — and in the end, it’s the real villains who rub their hands and laugh.

Who’s that?

The government, of course.

They don’t care about the cultural boycott. Do they?

They don’t. But on right-wing Israeli TV, they treated this as good news. It’s the same for the far right in France — it hands weapons to the bad guys. I’ll say it again: I don’t think the people who boycotted me are antisemites. There’s antisemitism and racism everywhere, but fundamentally this isn’t a conflict between antisemites and an Israeli. It’s a state of mind, the consequence of the horror that happened and the world’s inertia toward it — one seeking a form of moral purity, a way of avoiding looking the dragon straight in the eye.

If they boycott you out of moral purity, can’t they see you already share their opinions?

I don’t know how many have actually seen my films. All these people — not stupid, of course — say, “It’s not the time to watch a film by an Israeli.” It reminds me of a filmmaker quoted anonymously in Le Monde saying “it’s no longer the time for nuance.” That distresses me, because it echoes Israeli thinking — “I know children aren’t guilty, but it’s not the time for nuance.”

It’s a kind of essentialism — like racism.

Exactly. And it’s childish: they won’t make Israel disappear by refusing to watch. It becomes a narcissistic act — the story becomes about you rather than the real state of things. You can’t talk about Israel without talking about Palestine; in all my films there’s this presence of Palestinians accompanying Israelis everywhere, especially when they try to make them disappear. They accompany the Israelis like shadows, like echoes. Our stories are tragically bound to one another. “I don’t want to look” is a childish attitude.

Do you think you can still finance your films and show them at festivals in the current environment?

I don’t know. Someone sent me a review calling “Yes” one of the most divisive films of the decade, comparing it to “The Deer Hunter” and “Apocalypse Now” — films that came out as the real atrocities were unfolding. It keeps making noise because it touches the fire, and I’ll keep trying to touch the fire — I was born where it’s always burning. I can’t say what will happen in Venice, Cannes, Berlin or Toronto, but I’ll keep using cinema to speak the truth of the world.

You tried to fund “Yes” elsewhere and ultimately worked with the Israel Film Fund — which is independent and finances all kinds of cinema.

Yes. People see “Israel Film Fund,” or worse the Ministry of Culture logo, and imagine Netanyahu’s assistant is reading the screenplays. That’s not the case. I say it with worry, because Israel is in a state of permanent fascistization and artistic freedom there is not a given — in a week or two, it may no longer be true. But the fund’s director is courageous and fights to keep making films the government doesn’t like at all. After the film came out, the Minister of Culture put out a video saying I’d harmed “our pure and sanctified soldiers,” and promised that never again would I get a single cent in Israel. The government no longer even bothers to disguise itself as a democracy. When we used the funding, exactly three people read the screenplay — the fund’s director, a director and a critic, none tied to Israeli institutions. They financed a film some European institutions were afraid to back.

You got some pushback from European institutions?

Yes. Some people asked me, either directly or indirectly: “Isn’t the film too anti-Israel?” When we sent the synopsis to certain institutions, we started erasing words from the synopsis — like communist-era censorship, so “genocidal” became an “impulse of vengeance,” then “vengeance” was erased too. The people preoccupied with Israel’s image came from European institutions, not Israeli cinema. So the question should be framed differently: how do we finance radical, politically and cinematically bold films today? Must they be made with whatever spare change an uncle will throw in? Or is there still someone in cinema who understands these films are more important than ever?

Would you expect more people to reach out to finance your movies?

I’m OK; I hope I’ll figure it out. I don’t want to reduce it to personal terms. But “Yes” is a film about cowardice within a state at its gravest moment — and in a way the situation around it displayed that same cowardice. Against its will, the film revealed a great deal about the state of cinema.

In practical terms, if you can no longer get funds from the Israel Film Fund, how will you keep going?

I don’t know how much validity the minister’s statement has, or how long the fund can stay independent. Money is always a bit dirty — nobody hands it to you from paradise. As long as I have something to say, I’ll keep making films. But the moment there’s no real independence left in Israeli funding — and I believe it’ll come — I won’t take it. I already don’t take money from the other main fund, the Rabinovich, because it’s become too close to the regime. It comes back to nuance.

Isn’t this boycott and those fears decimating Israeli cinema?

It affects all cinema, not just Israeli cinema — that’s the problem. The question of how we make radical films concerns France, America, everywhere. It’s too easy to talk only about conflicts where there’s no danger and then boast about being politically engaged.

So you’re not about to start making romantic comedies?

Honestly, I’d adore it. “Yes” is also a romantic comedy, among other things. A love film, even.

Will you keep making films that are as politically charged, though?

I don’t have that level of self-awareness. When I finished “Yes,” I sent the screenplay to my producer and wrote, “This time it’s a romantic comedy, a bit sweet — at least maybe it’ll sell tickets.” I never set out to make a political film. I make films about life and where I grew up where there’s no distinction between the political and the personal; that distinction is artificial. My films are always a wild mixture of the two.

Are you working on your next film?