The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences apologised on Friday for failing to identify Oscar-winning “No Other Land” co-director Hamdan Ballal by name, following growing criticism for its first response to the violent attack.
The Associated Press noted that academy president Janet Yang and CEO Bill Kramer expressed sorrow for not making a formal statement on Ballal in a letter to academy members.
Witnesses reported that Israeli settlers in the West Bank assaulted the director on Monday before the Israeli military took him into custody.
The incident was strongly denounced by many film organisations, among others, just weeks after Ballal and his fellow filmmakers took home the Academy Award for Best Documentary.
A statement against “harming or suppressing artists for their work or their viewpoints” was issued by the Academy on Wednesday.
Journalist and “No Other Land” co-director Yuval Abraham was quite critical of the answer, likening it to “silence on Hamdan’s assault.”
The Academy has 11,000 members, and in an open letter released Friday, more than 600 of them said the message “fell far short of the sentiments this moment calls for.”
Jonathan Glazer, the director of “The Zone of Interest,” Joaquin Phoenix, Olivia Colman, Riz Ahmed, Emma Thompson, Javier Bardem, and Penélope Cruz were among the signatories.
Kramer and Yang issued a new statement in response to the Academy’s board of governors meeting on Friday.
The Academy responded to members, “We want to make it clear that the Academy condemns violence of this kind anywhere in the world and sincerely apologise to Mr Ballal and all artists who felt unsupported by our previous statement. We detest any situation in which free speech is suppressed.”
After being held for over twenty hours, Israeli soldiers freed Ballal. Two Palestinians, including Ballal, have denied accusations that they threw stones at a settler.
He told The Associated Press after being freed that a settler had kicked his head “like a football” during an assault on his town.
Ballal stated, “I knew they were targeting me specifically,” in a hospital in the West Bank on Tuesday following his release. The moment they say, ‘Oscar,’ you comprehend. You comprehend when they pronounce your name.”
The Israeli military designated Masafer Yatta as a live-fire training zone in the 1980s and ordered the displacement of its population, who were primarily Arab Bedouins.
The situation there is chronicled in the joint Israeli-Palestinian film “No Other Land.” Soldiers frequently invade to destroy houses, tents, water tanks, and olive orchards, but the majority of the 1,000 people have managed to stay put.
“No Other Land” was self-released in theatres after failing to secure a US distributor despite receiving widespread praise. Even yet, it made over $2 million in North American theatres before winning an Oscar.
