Who is Nadav Lapid?

The sharp critique by Israeli filmmaker and International Film Festival of India 2022 jury president Nadav Lapid of the Indian competition entry The Kashmir Files at the festival’s closing ceremony in Panjim on Monday evening snowballed into a diplomatic kerfuffle the morning after.

The Israeli ambassador to India, Sri Lanka and Bhutan, Naor Gilon, tweeted his open letter to the filmmaker, telling him to be ashamed of himself for abusing Indian hospitality and friendship and chastising him for being “insensitive and presumptuous to speak about historic events before deeply studying them”.

Speaking on behalf of the jury, Lapid had stated that they were “disturbed and shocked” by the inclusion of The Kashmir Files in the 15 competition films. He said that it felt to them like a “propaganda, vulgar movie inappropriate for an artistic competitive section of such a prestigious film festival.” 

The damage control and firefighting from Israel were expected, given the closeness of its ties with India (in which cinema, especially Bollywood, has been playing a key role), boosted further now with the former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s comeback and formally tasked with forming the new government after the 2022 Israeli legislative elections.

After decades of being part of the non-alignment movement and having a pro-Arab policy, India formally established relations with Israel in 1992 and the bond has been growing stronger since the Narendra Modi government came to power in 2014.

Back in early 2018, Netanyahu’s selfie with the Hindi film stars at the Shalom Bollywood event in Mumbai had gone viral. Bollywood was promised sops for shooting in Israel. So ardent was Israel’s wooing of the Hindi film industry that BDS (Boycott, Divestments, Sanctions), a Palestine-led movement for freedom, justice and equality, felt threatened enough to reach out to the industry through a delegation in Mumbai, to make it aware of its popularity in the Arab world and explain the Arab perspective that Israel wanted to “use Hindi films to cover for the human rights abuse, occupation and apartheid”. 

In light of this recent history and context, Lapid’s speaking his mind stunned many. Not only did he talk at an Indian government event organised by the National Film Development Corporation, but, embarrassingly so, amid several ministers, bureaucrats, film industry professionals and dignitaries, including the union minister of information and broadcasting, Anurag Thakur, and ambassador Gilon.

Moreover, the film that invited his wrath had received approval from none other than PM Modi himself at the time of its release in March this year.

On being put in a tight spot and facing outrage over Lapid’s statement online, the consul general of Israel to Midwest India, Mumbai, Kobbi Shoshani, tweeted on Monday night about having a different opinion on the film than Lapid’s. Another jury member, filmmaker Sudipto Sen, who is making The Kerala Story, about “the deadly game being played to convert normal girls into dreaded ISIS terrorists in Kerala” chose to distance himself, tweeting that what Lapid said on stage was his personal political opinion and that they are assigned to judge films on their technical and aesthetic merits and socio-cultural relevance alone.

“We are proud to judge and award best six cinema/individuals of our time unanimously. IFFI stands behind its fair selection of films representing diverse themes and complex viewpoints from all over the world, just as it acknowledges their subjective interpretations,” he tweeted, even as the social media erupted with opinions on either of the divide, as polarising as the blockbuster itself.

Directed by Vivek Agnihotri, the film’s depiction of the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits following the insurgency in the early1990s was vehemently criticised for being Islamophobic and inciting hatred against Muslims; its supporters, however, praised the film for focusing on a forgotten side of history. 
In all this brouhaha, the spotlight was bound to turn on Lapid. From his name being mispronounced initially—Nadal, Lipid—to #nadavlapid trending on Twitter, Lapid came a long way in a matter of 24 hours. But who is the guy to have opened the veritable can of worms?

For the cinephiles on the side-lines of the festival, more than the debate on The Kashmir Files as an Indian entry, alongside the likes of Krzysztof Zanussi’s Perfect Number, Dariush Mehrjui’s A Minor and Lav Diaz’s When the Waves are Gone, it was the choice of Lapid as the head of the jury that had come as a total surprise. Did the ministry not know enough about him and his work? Did he fall between the bureaucratic cracks of cinematic ignorance?

Apart from being a highly acclaimed and significant filmmaking voice, Lapid has also been a no-holds-barred dissenter in his own country, never shy of expressing opinions on issues that he has felt strongly about.

“I feel totally comfortable to share openly these feelings here with you on stage since the spirit of the festival can truly accept also a critical discussion, which is essential for art and for life,” he said at the closing ceremony. Something that Gilon himself ticked off when he tweeted: “As you vocally did in the past, feel free to use the liberty to sound your criticism of what you dislike in Israel but no need to reflect your frustration on other countries.”

Lapid’s beliefs and values have illuminated his films. Synonyms (2019), the Berlinale Golden Bear winner, reflected his inner conflicts with his homeland Israel, the idea of nationalism, and the complicated issue of his Jewish identity. Ahed’s Knee (2021), about a filmmaker negotiating his artistic freedom with the Establishment, the ministry of culture, showed how the personal, the national and the political are deeply intertwined in his DNA, both as an individual and a creator.

Most recently, Lapid, along with the likes of Ari Folman of Waltz with Bashir fame, had been one of the 250 signatories to a letter by the Israeli filmmaking community opposing the Shomron Film Fund, proposed by culture minister Miri Regev, which they felt was all about whitewashing the Palestinian occupation by giving grants to Jewish settlers in the West Bank. They likened it to cultural apartheid.

In casting the whole of Israel as a friendly, like-minded monolith, what got overlooked, perhaps, is that cinema, like that of Lapid’s, has been flourishing both in Israel and Palestine in the thick of conflict and social, economic and cultural tug-of-war. Cinema has been questioning, critiquing and transcending the banal limitations imposed by politics. Cinema is about nonconformism and resistance and making the world richer even while fuelling conflicts of opinion.