Natalie Portman leaves a Toronto hotel on Sept. 16, 2009 during the Toronto International Film Festival.CENTRAL IMAGE AGENCY
In a roundtable interview Wednesday morning for her new film Love and Other Impossible Pursuits, Natalie Portman expressed why she signed a letter in support of Tel Aviv's inclusion in TIFF's City to City program - a choice that sparked a protest from other filmmakers. "I just think the protest was very poorly considered," Portman said. "I'm not saying Israel is beyond criticism, because there's plenty in Israel's politics that you can criticize. It's just, why boycott artists? It's ridiculous. If you want to talk about applauding places that are built on suffering, the United States was built on the genocide of 40 million Native Americans. Are we going to boycott American films?"
"How about those slavery years?" Don Roos, the film's writer/director, piped in.
"Yeah, that slavery was awesome too," Portman said. "Also there's so much dissent in Israeli and Palestinian art, and that's part of the spotlight. I wonder - because those people [who signed the protest letter] I respect their work - I wonder if they hastily signed that, because it seems not well thought through."
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Johanna Schneller