His 2025 film, Yes, critiqued contemporary Israeli society, the country’s political direction and the role of its cultural institutions during the war in Gaza.
Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid attends the 20th Rome Film Festival, October 16, 2025 (Credit: Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images)Getty Images
Yet, despite his reputation as a dissident voice, activists campaigning for a cultural boycott argued that Lapid should be excluded because Yes received partial funding from the Israeli Film Fund, which operates independently from government but receives public funding.
In their letter, the signatories described the campaign against Lapid as “an intellectual failure” and warned against reducing artists to their nationality.
“We should be troubled that one of the most prominent critical voices in Israel, who works tirelessly against his government’s fascist and colonialist tendencies and against its moral failures through films recognised around the world, was forced to withdraw from a French festival,” the letter stated.
“It should also make us understand a simple truth: whatever crimes a person’s country commits, he must not be reduced to the passport he carries. No one is only his passport.”
The signatories compared Lapid’s situation to that of Russian and Iranian filmmakers who have continued to receive international platforms despite their countries being accused of serious human rights abuses.
The letter specifically cited Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev, who recently used his acceptance speech after winning the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival to urge President Putin to “put an end to the massacre” in Ukraine.
Israel’s Culture Minister Miki Zohar subsequently weighed in on the dispute, claiming it demonstrated that anti-Israel activists do not distinguish between Israelis regardless of their political views.
“Nadav Lapid does not understand that Israel-haters do not distinguish between us,” Zohar wrote on social media. “No matter how much he tries to please them, they never saw him as one of their own, and to them he will always be a Jew from Israel.”
Lapid, though, rejected the minister’s interpretation. “There are people harassing me because I am Israeli,” he told Israeli media. “But the lesson for me is different – almost all of French cinema joined this petition, and that puts everything in proportion.”
