site.btaScreening of "A Letter to David" Cancelled for Security Reasons, CineLibri Director Says

The screening of the film A Letter to David has been cancelled due to security concerns, the director of the CineLibri film and literature festival, Jacqueline Wagenstein, told BTA on Monday. She said the festival organizers would not allow their audience to be subjected to any form of violence or to feel fear or anxiety while attending screenings in the CineLibri programme. Wagenstein added that efforts were being made to ensure that the film would eventually be shown and that details about how and when that would happen would be announced soon.

She noted that in the days leading up to the opening of CineLibri, acts of vandalism had occurred in Sofia, including stickers with misleading content using the festival’s name, vandalism at cinemas, restaurants and public spaces, and the circulation of leaflets and an online petition aimed at disrupting the festival’s 11th edition and undermining the peace of mind of its team, partners, and guests. Wagenstein said the authorities had been promptly informed and security measures had been taken.

If there is one cause that the festival stands for above all others, Wagenstein said, it is peaceful coexistence between people of different ethnicities and backgrounds, and respect for human rights. Acts of sabotage from any side, she stressed, restrict creative freedom and violate the rights of viewers. She said the circulating petition contains false statements and insinuations that serve inhumane causes. According to Wagenstein, the number of signatories is very small and none of them are people the festival works with or would work with. “Some of them claim they are not antisemitic,” she added, “yet they sign a petition alongside openly militant anti-Semites.”

Earlier in the day, Wagenstein wrote on social media that the CineLibri team had never taken part in political debates or adopted political positions. “Yes, CineLibri is a festival of film and literature, and film and literature today are more engaged than ever with a wide range of social, political, environmental and other issues, some of them extremely painful,” she said. She described Tom Shoval’s documentary A Letter to David, a film awarded at several international festivals, including the Berlinale, as a powerful true story about innocent victims of violence held hostage by a terrorist group. “It is a film that contains no aggression and does not offend any community or group of people,” Wagenstein explained, adding that the antisemitic acts of sabotage against its screening constitute a form of moral violence that limits artistic freedom and infringes on viewers’ rights.

She also emphasized that CineLibri has always been a platform for diverse and sometimes opposing film and literary perspectives. “If one follows the festival’s programme over the years, it becomes clear that there has never been censorship or self-censorship regarding specific issues, topics or ideas. If such an approach can be interpreted as a political stance, then it is a stance in the interest of the future of human civilization as a whole,” Wagenstein said.