Arundhati Roy withdraws from Berlin Film Festival amid Gaza row

Award-winning writer Arundhati Roy said Friday (February 13, 2026) she was withdrawing from the Berlin Film Festival over jury president Wim Wenders’ comments that he wanted to “stay out of politics” after being asked about Gaza.

Ms. Roy said in a statement sent to AFP that she was “shocked and disgusted” by Mr. Wenders’ response to a question on Gaza at a press conference on Thursday (February 12, 2026). “With deep regret, I must say that I will not be attending the Berlinale,” she said.

Ms. Roy, whose novel “The God of Small Things” won the 1997 Booker Prize, had been announced as a festival guest to present a restored version of the 1989 film “In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones”, in which she starred and wrote the screenplay.

However, she said that the “unconscionable” statements by Mr. Wenders and other jury members had led her to reconsider.

“To hear them say that art should not be political is jaw-dropping,” she said.

When asked about Germany’s support for Israel at the press conference on Thursday (February 12, 2026), Mr. Wenders said, “We cannot really enter the field of politics,” describing filmmakers as “the counterweight to politics”.

In her statement, Ms. Roy described Israel’s actions in Gaza as “a genocide of the Palestinian people by the State of Israel”.

“If the greatest filmmakers and artists of our time cannot stand up and say so, they should know that history will judge them,” she said.