Tadamon! » 2009

Quebec festival drops “Tolerance” award

March 10th, 2009 | Posted in Boycott, Canada, Palestine, Quebec

open letter from Malcolm Guy Director / Producer.

Montréal, March, 2009 — Les Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois (RVCQ), the annual festival honouring Quebec cinema, has just wrapped its 2009 edition with the awards evening. Special congratulations to Richard Brouillette, who won the Prix Pierre et Yolande Perrault / Meilleur espoir documentaire for his film Encirclement : Neo-Liberalism Ensnares Democracy and also to our friends at Péripheria, who won the short film award for Three mothers by Daniel Schachter.

You may not be aware, but one award was cut from the Rendez-vous this year.

I was involved in pushing for the festival to drop the prize for Tolerance through cinema (le prix de la Fondation Ruth et Alex Dworkin pour la promotion de la Tolérance à travers le cinéma). Please find below an open letter signed by almost 60 members of the Quebec film community supporting the decision by the RVCQ to no longer present this controversial award. This letter was sent to the Rendez-vous on January 19, 2009.

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Open letter to Les Grands Ballets canadiens de Montréal

March 9th, 2009 | Posted in Boycott, Canada, Palestine, Quebec

Open letter to les Grands Ballets canadiens de Montréal.

Dear Alain Dancyger, directeur général, Les Grands Ballets canadiens de Montréal

In 2008, Jean-Luc Godard, the celebrated French film maker, one of the founding members of the French New Wave in 1960s cinema, declined an invitation to be a participant in The Tel Aviv International Student Film Festival. Godard’s refusal to attend the festival was a recognition of the importance of the Anti-Apartheid boycott movement called for by many Palestinian, Israeli and Human Rights organizations world-wide.

This letter is an appeal to you by Tadamon!, a Montreal-based collective which works in solidarity with struggles for self-determination, equality and justice in the Middle East and is deeply involved in the international campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions against the Israeli government.

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