Academy issues apology to No Other Land's Hamdan Ballal over "lack of support"

Now Academy leaders Bill Kramer and Janet Yang, who signed the previous statement, have issued an apology, writing in a statement that, “On Wednesday, we sent a letter in response to reports of violence against Oscar winner Hamdan Ballal, co-director of No Other Land, connected to his artistic expression. We regret that we failed to directly acknowledge Mr. Ballal and the film by name. We sincerely apologize to Mr. Ballal and all artists who felt unsupported by our previous statement and want to make it clear that the Academy condemns violence of this kind anywhere in the world. We abhor the suppression of free speech under any circumstances.”

Which, yes, does carry a whiff of “We’re sorry if you’re offended,” given how obvious the previous decision to speak without acknowledging the attack on Ballal was. It does, at least, acknowledge Ballal’s statements that he was targeted in part because of No Other Land‘s Oscar victory; he has said that he heard his attackers refer to the Oscar in the midst of the attack. (Ballal’s co-director, Israeli filmmaker Yuval Abraham, had previously stated that the Academy had refused to speak on the attack: “We were told that because other Palestinians were beaten up in the settler attack, it could be considered unrelated to the film, so they felt no need to respond.”)

[via THR]