NO TO THE ISRAELI FILM FESTIVAL IN ACCRA #FREEPALESTINE #BOYCOTTISRAEL

We the under-signed organisations and individuals condemn Silverbird Cinema for hosting an “Israeli Film Festival” on 16–20 September 2025, co-organised with the Zionist state. Any platform for apartheid, genocide, and the mass killing of Palestinian civilians is complicity in crimes against humanity.

Silverbird must understand the legal, social and political weight of this decision, as the ICC and ICJ processes expand worldwide. Across Africa, people are proud to stand against Israel’s racist, apartheid regime, and global solidarity with Palestine is stronger than ever.

It is breathtaking hypocrisy that Silverbird, having just screened the anti-apartheid film Comrade Tambo’s London Recruits on 7 September, now seeks to celebrate the “culture” of today’s worst apartheid state.

We demand Silverbird cancel this festival immediately and pledge never again to platform perpetrators of apartheid and genocide. We also call out the complicity of sponsors—Kempinski Hotel, SAF (STL), Rolider, EON, Sienna Services, UniMac, and others—whose names are now tied to bloodshed. History will not forget.

UniMac’s involvement is especially disgraceful. All educational and cultural life in Gaza and Palestine is being systematically targeted and wiped out as part of all-encompassing genocide. That is why Lecturers, Students, Trade Unions in Education and Universities all over are notable among those standing up in Solidarity with Palestine and for comprehensive Boycott of Israel.  UniMac is a state university funded by the Ghanaian people. Its support for this festival is a terrible abuse of public trust. We urge Vice Chancellor Prof Eric Opoku-Mensah to reverse this dishonourable decision and instead honour the values of education, democracy, and cultural freedom.

We further demand all sponsors withdraw immediately and distance themselves from this obscenity. To remain is to be marked as collaborators in genocide.

From 16 September, we will picket Silverbird in our numbers. If they persist, they will face relentless public resistance. There can be no “business as usual” for enablers of apartheid and genocide.

Cancel this festival. Withdraw your sponsorship. The people are watching. History will judge.

#FREEPALESTINE #BOYCOTTISRAEL #BDS