Protest at the Toronto International Film Fest

This clip from an article in Realscreen makes you think… is he right or wrong:

“Filmmaker John Greyson is taking his boycott of Israel to the Toronto International Film Festival. Greyson, who withdrew his film Fig Trees (photo) from the Tel Aviv International LGBT Film Festival in April, has written to Toronto festival organizers to take his short documentary Covered out of the September event’s Short Cuts Canada sidebar. Greyson, who is also a film professor at Toronto’s York University, said the action was done in protest over TIFF’s inaugural City to City program because it spotlights Tel Aviv, not over the Israeli directors showing their work in Toronto.

In his letter Greyson complained the Tel Aviv sidebar does not include Palestinian artists or filmmakers…” Of course the organisers of the festival thinks Greyson does wrong and should have kept his film in the programme and taken initiative to debate. Should he – I am not convinced.

http://www.realscreen.com/articles/news/20090831/greysontiff.html

http://www.indiewire.com/article/war_of_words/

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Tue Steen Müller
Tue Steen Müller

Müller, Tue Steen
Documentary Consultant and Critic, DENMARK

Worked with documentary films for more than 20 years at the Danish Film Board, as press officer, festival representative and film consultant/commissioner. Co-founder of Balticum Film and TV Festival, Filmkontakt Nord, Documentary of the EU and EDN (European Documentary Network).
Awards: 2004 the Danish Roos Prize for his contribution to the Danish and European documentary culture. 2006 an award for promoting Portuguese documentaries. 2014 he received the EDN Award “for an outstanding contribution to the development of the European documentary culture”. 2016 The Cross of the Knight of the Order for Merits to Lithuania. 2019 a Big Stamp at the 15th edition of ZagrebDox. 2021 receipt of the highest state decoration, Order of the Three Stars, Fourth Class, for the significant contribution to the development and promotion of Latvian documentary cinema outside Latvia. In 2022 he received an honorary award at DocsBarcelona’s 25th edition having served as organizer and programmer since the start of the festival.
From 1996 until 2005 he was the first director of EDN (European Documentary Network). From 2006 a freelance consultant and teacher in workshops like Ex Oriente, DocsBarcelona, Archidoc, Documentary Campus, Storydoc, Baltic Sea Forum, Black Sea DocStories, Caucadoc, CinéDOC Tbilisi, Docudays Kiev, Dealing With the Past Sarajevo FF as well as programme consultant for the festivals Magnificent7 in Belgrade, DOCSBarcelona, Verzio Budapest, Message2Man in St. Petersburg and DOKLeipzig. Teaches at the Zelig Documentary School in Bolzano Italy.

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