At Berlin 2026, ‘Free Speech’ Concerns Spark Statement

Almost as soon as this year’s Berlinale opened, the film festival and its assembled luminaries were asked about the current political climate and their own beliefs in everything from the power of art to the scourge of fascism. Not everyone seemed entirely up for the task.

As Variety previously reported, when competition jury head Wim Wenders was asked about the power of art in fraught times, he said, “movies can change the world … (but) not in a political way.”

He later added, when specifically asked about the conflict in Gaza (and, even more specifically, the support that Germany has shown for Israel), Wenders added that as filmmakers, “We have to stay out of politics because if we make movies that are dedicatedly political, we enter the field of politics. But we are the counterweight of politics, we are the opposite of politics. We have to do the work of people, not the work of politicians.”

The next day, celebrated Indian author and screenwriter Arundhati Roy announced that she would be pulling out of the festival, due to Wenders’ and the jury’s previous comments. She had been set to screen her 1989 campus comedy “In Which Annie Give It Those Ones” as part of the Classics section.

“This morning, like millions of people across the world, I heard the unconscionable statements made by members of the jury of the Berlin film festival when they were asked to comment about the genocide in Gaza,” she wrote in a statement shared with Indian publication The Wire. “To hear them say that art should not be political is jaw-dropping. It is a way of shutting down a conversation about a crime against humanity even as it unfolds before us in real time – when artists, writers and film makers should be doing everything in their power to stop it.”

Elsewhere, a number of other talents were asked about politics and their own opinions during the festival’s first weekend.

At a Friday press conference, Michelle Yeoh was asked about the current state of American politics, and commented, “I don’t think I am in the position to really talk about the political situation in the U.S., and also I cannot presume to say I understand how it is. So, best not to talk about something I don’t know about.” She added that she wanted to “concentrate on what is important for us, which is cinema.”

Later that day, Neil Patrick Harris and the team behind “Sunny Dancer” were asked during their own press conference, “Do you dare to criticize your government and do you think democracy in the U.S. is in danger?” Harris reportedly responded, ““Wow. While I have my own political opinions, I think as a performer, especially in this kind of movie, (I’m) trying to be as inclusive (as possible). I never read this script as a political statement.” He had previously commented, “I’m always interested in doing things that are apolitical.”

Rupert Grint was asked to share his feelings on fascism during a press conference for “Nightborn” (“Obviously, I’m against it. But I choose my moments when to speak. But I think yeah, it’s obviously hugely relevant now. You’ll hear from me”).

All three actors faced almost immediate online backlash, and the fervor around the statements was enough to spark festival head Tricia Tuttle into sharing an official response, one that both proclaimed the power of free speech and art and seemed to chastise those who would ask questions about them in the festival milieu.

The full statement from Tuttle, sent out by the festival on Saturday night, follows:

People have called for free speech at the Berlinale. Free speech is happening at the Berlinale. But increasingly, filmmakers are expected to answer any question put to them. They are criticised if they do not answer. They are criticised if they answer and we do not like what they say. They are criticised if they cannot compress complex thoughts into a brief sound bite when a microphone is placed in front of them when they thought they were speaking about something else.

It is hard to see the Berlinale and so many hundreds of filmmakers and people who work on this festival distilled into something we do not always recognise in the online and media discourse. Over the next ten days at the Berlinale, filmmakers are speaking constantly. They are speaking through their work. They are speaking about their work. They are speaking, at times, about geopolitics that may or may not be related to their films. It is a large, complex festival. A festival that people value in so many different ways and for so many reasons.

There are 278 films in this year’s programme. They carry many perspectives. There are films about genocide, about sexual violence in war, about corruption, about patriarchal violence, about colonialism or abusive state power. There are filmmakers here who have faced violence and genocide in their lives, who may face prison, exile, and even death for the work they have made or the positions they have taken. They come to Berlin and share their work with courage. This is happening now. Are we amplifying those voices enough?

There are also filmmakers who come to the Berlinale with different political aims: to ask how we can talk about art as art, and how we can keep cinemas alive so that independent films still have a place to be seen and discussed. In a media environment dominated by crisis, there is less oxygen left for serious conversation about film or culture at all, unless it can be folded as well into a news agenda.

Some films express a politics with a small “p”: they examine power in daily life, who and what is seen or unseen, included or excluded. Others engage with Politics with a capital “P”: governments, state policy, institutions of power and justice. This is a choice. Speaking to power happens in visible ways, and sometimes in quieter personal ones. Across the history of the Berlinale, many artists have made human rights central to their work. Others have made films which we see as quietly radical political acts which focus on small, fragile moments of care, beauty, love, or on people who are invisible to most of us, people who are alone. They help us make connections to our shared humanity through their movies. And in a broken world this is precious.

What links so many of these filmmakers at the Berlinale is a deep respect for human dignity. We do not believe there is a filmmaker screening in this festival who is indifferent to what is happening in this world, who does not take the rights, the lives and the immense suffering of people in Gaza and the West Bank, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in Sudan, in Iran, in Ukraine, in Minneapolis, and in a terrifying number of places, seriously.

Artists are free to exercise their right of free speech in whatever way they choose. Artists should not be expected to comment on all broader debates about a festival’s previous or current practices over which they have no control. Nor should they be expected to speak on every political issue raised to them unless they want to.

We continue to do this work because we love cinema but we also hope and believe watching films can change things even if that is the glacial shift of changing people, one heart or mind at a time.

We thank our team, guests, juries, our filmmakers, and the many others engaged with the Berlinale for cool heads in hot times.