Israel’s Oscar Submission ‘Tell Me Everything’ Dropped From Queer Film Festival Following Boycott Threats

Shiryn Ghermezian

A promotional photo for Moshe Rosenthal’s “Tell Me Everything.” Photo: “Everybody’s Perfect.”

A queer film festival in Geneva, Switzerland, removed an Israeli film from its lineup this week after receiving backlash and boycott threats from local pro-Palestinian groups.

Everybody’s Perfect, which describes itself as a “festival of queer cinema,” has canceled two screenings of Moshe Rosenthal’s “Tell Me Everything.” The film is about a father-son relationship and follows 12-year-old Boaz, who discovers a shocking secret about his father in the late 1980s in the US, at the height of the HIV epidemic.

The movie premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year and in September set a record for the most nominations — 16 – at Israel’s Ophir Awards, which is the country’s equivalent to the Academy Awards. “Tell Me Everything” won Best Picture at the Ophir Awards, which automatically made it Israel’s submission for the best international feature film category at the 99th Academy Awards. Rosenthal said the film was heavily inspired by his own childhood.

Everybody’s Perfect will run from Oct. 9-18 and is being supported in part by the city of Geneva. Charlotte Spector, head of communications for the event, told Variety that organizers decided to cancel the two screenings of “Tell Me Everything” after another Geneva-based film festival, Palestine Filmer C’est Exister, reached out expressing their opposition to the film.

“They started writing messages like ‘We’re going to boycott your festival’ — boycott, boycott, just boycott,” Spector told the publication. “When people mention boycotting a festival that is a very big threat … This was a three-day decision with lots and lots of heartache. It was difficult.”

“[‘Tell Me Everything’] is a beautiful film about the ’80s and AIDS/HIV,” Spector added. “There’s nothing that is remotely close to what is going on currently and what has been going on [in Israel/Gaza].”

Festival organizers apologized when they told the filmmakers about the cancellation and explained the decision was made “for the well-being of the festival audience and to ensure that the other films in the selection could be properly showcased,” as cited by Variety. Other local groups that pressured Everybody’s Perfect to remove Rosenthal’s film from its lineup included BDS Geneva, Student Coordination for Palestine at the University of Geneva, Collectif Radical d’Action Queer (CRAQ), and MARAD, according to an Instagram post.

In a statement to the Swiss newspaper Le Courrier, the festival’s artistic director Sylvie Cachin said, “The cancelation isn’t related to the film itself, but to the desire to avoid controversy just days before the festival’s opening.”

“Tell Me Everything” is Rosenthal’s second feature film. His directorial debut, “Karaoke,” premiered at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival.

Everybody’s Perfect did not respond to The Algemeiner‘s request for comment.