{"id":293231,"date":"2026-02-15T23:19:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T23:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/293231\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T23:19:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T23:19:07","slug":"why-are-celebrities-avoiding-politics-at-berlin-film-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/293231\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Are Celebrities Avoiding Politics at Berlin Film Festival?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tA clear sign that the world has gone topsy-turvy is when the Grammys are more political than the Berlinale. <\/p>\n

\n\tBut while anti-ICE pins and punchy statements were the surprise headline act in L.A. earlier this month, over in Berlin, historically an event where politics has played center stage on and off screen, the overriding theme of the 2026 festival so far is one of political silence. Or at least that\u2019s how the narrative has been framed.<\/p>\n

\n\tFestival attendees Wim Wenders<\/a>, Michelle Yeoh and Neil Patrick Harris<\/a> have all come under fire online over their apparent refusal to make political statements when prompted in press conferences. Jury head Wenders\u2019 comments on the opening day, in which he asserted that \u201cwe have to stay out of politics\u201d when asked about the German government\u2019s support for Israel impacting the festival\u2019s stance on Gaza, lit the match. It soon led to author Arundhati Roy pulling out of the festival in anger. The bombardment of political questions in each and every media meet only snowballed from there on.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut when does it become the responsibility of an artist attending a festival to speak out?<\/p>\n

\n\tMany might have assumed that Wenders, who has previously asserted that \u201cevery film is political,\u201d wouldn\u2019t have deflected a question that most festival vets would have known was coming and perhaps offered something stronger to say.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut then, should Yeoh \u2014 who has been living in Switzerland for the last seven years \u2014 be expected to offer a soundbite about the political situation in the U.S.? And why would Neil Patrick Harris, in town to promote \u2018Sunny Dancer,\u2019 a British coming-of-age comedy about teenagers with cancer from a 25-year-old director, want the top line to be his opinions on American diplomatic threats? In each case, however, their comments \u2014 or lack thereof \u2014 became the story.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs Berlinale head Tricia Tuttle wrote in a lengthy statement put out on Saturday<\/a>, filmmakers are now \u201cexpected to answer any question put to them,\u201d and are \u201ccriticized if they do not answer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFor Tilo Jung, the German political journalist who has been asking many of the politically-pronged questions, given the \u201crise of fascism\u201d across much of the West, artists with a \u201cbigger reach\u201d should be using their platforms to speak out.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cFascism is the enemy of artistic freedom,\u201d he says, pointing to the attacks against Bad Bunny following his Super Bowl performance. \u201cSo artists \u2014 especially the Hollywood elite \u2014have a special role in a least raising their voices. They need to step up \u2014 and the time to do that is now. We need to learn from history.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOne artist who did speak up \u2014 to an extent \u2014 was Rupert Grint<\/a>, asked if he would comment on the rise of the far-right in the U.K. in the press conference for Finnish horror \u201cNightborn.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHis answer \u2014 \u201cObviously, I\u2019m against it\u201d \u2014 prompted many to question the entire point of asking celebrities such questions. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBut that was a better answer than Neil Patrick Harris,\u201d said Jung. \u201cNobody is expecting a TED Talk. But at least expect one question and have an answer. But if an artist is afraid to speak up when it comes to fascism \u2014 then they shouldn\u2019t be coming. Because these are different times. This is about good and evil, and as a German, we know what we\u2019re talking about. You can\u2019t be on the sidelines when it comes to this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIt should be noted that in the same press con for \u201cNightborn,\u201d screenwriter Ilja Rautsi did say that it was \u201cimportant to shine a light on whatever issues we are facing because art is all about empathy,\u201d adding \u201cit\u2019s maybe good to create some form of pressure, or just to get people aware of whatever is happening in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut there has certainly been a sense that the festival has been trying\u00a0to keep the politics on the sidelines, or least displayed through the art rather than the artist.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile Tuttle said that the political nature of \u201cNo Good Men\u201d from Afghan director Shahrbanoo Sadat was one of the reasons it was selected for the opening night, the ceremony itself\u2014 aside from the red carpet guests (several of whom brought messages concerning hot topics like Iran and fascism) \u2014 was politics free. It was a far cry from 2023, when Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the guests on the opening night.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd in the press conference for Charli xcx\u2019s \u201cThe Moment,\u201d the moderator took only two questions from the journalists in the room, dominating the rest of the time by asking her own softball questions.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut leave it to an outspoken U.S. rocker to buck the trend just a day later. <\/p>\n

\n\tRage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello \u2014 in town as co-director of music doc \u201cThe Ballad of Judas Priest\u201d about the heavy metal pioneers \u2014 wasted little time on wading into the debate.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhat a time to be alive, where you can both make a documentary about one of your favorite bands and fight fascism at the same time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe room of journalists \u2014 perhaps hungry for something, anything with a bit of political bite \u2014 erupted into applause.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A clear sign that the world has gone topsy-turvy is when the Grammys are more political than the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293232,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[26263,458,146,85,46,113930,91634,122344],"class_list":{"0":"post-293231","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-berlin-film-festival","9":"tag-celebrities","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-il","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-neil-patrick-harris","14":"tag-rupert-grint","15":"tag-wim-wenders"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}