Berlin International Film Festival director Tricia Tuttle will continue as head of the Berlinale, but must accept specific guidelines, German press reported after a crisis meeting of the festival’s supervisory board, Kulturveranstaltungen des Bundes in Berlin (KBB). Minister of State for Culture Wolfram Weimer said a “consultative forum” will be created and a code of conduct developed for cultural events funded by the German state.
The controversy followed pro-Palestinian statements at the festival’s awards ceremony on February 21. Syrian-Palestinian director Abdallah Alkhatib, accepting the prize for best feature debut for Chronicles From a Siege, accused Germany of becoming “partners of the genocide in Gaza by Israel.” Days later, tabloid Bild quoted sources saying Weimer would fire Tuttle for not intervening. The paper also suggested the festival’s neutrality had been compromised after Tuttle posed for a photo with Alkhatib’s film team, many of whom displayed the Palestinian flag or wore keffiyehs.
The KBB held an initial extraordinary meeting on February 26 to “discuss the future direction of the Berlinale” but took no decision. After further consultations, the board opted to keep Tuttle in place under new conditions including the planned forum and conduct guidelines.
News of a possible dismissal prompted broad industry support for Tuttle and for artistic freedom. An open letter signed by nearly 2,500 filmmakers—including Tilda Swinton, Todd Haynes, Nadav Lapid, Ilker Catak, Maren Ade and Tom Tykwer—argued that guests should be free to express identity or political views without such expressions being taken as festival endorsements. The letter stated that an international film festival is not a diplomatic instrument but a democratic cultural space capable of hosting divergent perspectives. It warned that personnel consequences tied to individual remarks would send a troubling signal that cultural institutions are vulnerable to political pressure and framed the dispute as a matter of artistic freedom and institutional independence.
More than 30 global festival directors, including Cannes’s Thierry Frémaux and Sundance’s Eugene Hernandez, published a statement on March 2 backing the principle of maintaining safe spaces for the exchange of cinema and ideas, including protecting the right to express unpopular or difficult views.
Within the Berlinale organization, over 500 employees signed a letter praising Tuttle’s “clarity, integrity and artistic vision,” saying it was unlikely the supervisory board could have chosen a more intelligent, ethical and responsive leader dedicated to the festival’s core principles.
Ahead of the supervisory board’s second extraordinary meeting, Tuttle told the German press agency dpa she wanted to stay in her role and continue the work begun with institutional independence intact. She acknowledged that a mutual-agreement resignation had been discussed with the minister of state for culture but said the support from the film community reinforced that the debate was about the broader principle that cultural institutions must be trusted to operate within democratic and legal frameworks. She added that the episode had renewed her clarity after challenging weeks.
The festival also faced criticism from pro-Palestinian activists for not adopting an official stance on the Israel-Gaza conflict. This controversy, coupled with accusations of antisemitism from some quarters, made the Berlinale’s handling of free expression and institutional neutrality a focal point of national debate.
This article was edited by Sarah Hucal.
