Tilda Swinton on Attending Berlin Film Festival Despite Calls for Boycott Over Gaza: ‘I Was Given a Platform’ That Was ‘More Useful to Our Causes Than Me Not Turning Up’

variety.com:

Ellise Shafer Tilda Swinton spoke about her decision to attend Berlin Film Festival despite calls for a boycott over the war in Gaza, saying it was “more useful to our causes” for her to show up.

On Thursday night, the Oscar winner received the festival’s honorary Golden Bear and made an impassioned speech in which she called out the “state-perpetrated and internationally-enabled mass murder is currently actively terrorizing more than one part of our world.” During a press conference on Friday, Swinton — who has been a longtime advocate for Palestinians — was asked about the BDS Movement‘s call for a boycott of the festival over the treatment of filmmakers who spoke out against the war in Gaza at last year’s closing ceremony. “I’m a great admirer of and have a great deal of respect for BDS and I think about it a lot,” Swinton said. “I am here today — and yesterday and tomorrow and the next day — because I decided to come, I decided it was more important for me to come.

I was given, thanks to the festival, a platform which I decided in a personal moment was potentially more useful to all our causes than me not turning up.

It was a judgment, and a personal judgment call, that I take full responsibility for.” However, Swinton added that she has “enormous respect and understanding for the need for people to find ways of feeling powerful.