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Director Jonathan Glazer denounced Israel’s prosecution of the war against Hamas in his acceptance speech for Best International Feature at the Academy Awards on Sunday night, linking what he called dehumanization in the “ongoing attack” in Gaza and in Israel during Oct. 7 to the Holocaust setting of his film The Zone of Interest.
The film, which tracks the daily lives of the overseer of Auschwitz and his family, Glazer said, was “made to reflect and confront us in the present — not to say, ‘Look what they did then,’ rather, ‘Look what we do now,’
“Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst. It shaped all of our past and present,” he said, adding that he resents “Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people. Whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist?”
Glazer, wearing glasses, read from a paper and appeared anxious. The audience responded with applause, and the lead actress in Zone of Interest, Sandra Hüller, watched him in tears.
A number of stars wore red lapel pins from the group “Artists for Ceasefire” during Sunday’s ceremony, including Mahershala Ali, Mark Ruffalo and Billie and Finneas Eilish, and Ramy Youssef, who explained the button on the red carpet.
“We’re calling for peace and justice – lasting justice – for the people of Palestine,” Youssef, star of the hit show Ramy, told Variety. “And I think it’s a universal message of just: Let’s stop killing kids. Let’s not be part of more war.”
Later in the evening, Mstyslav Chernov, the Ukrainian journalist whose 20 Days in Mariupol took the Oscar for Best Documentary, spoke similarly about the tragedy that unfolded there.
“I will probably be the first director on this stage to say that I wish I had never made this film,” Chernov said. “I wish to be able to exchange this for Russia never attacking Ukraine, never invading our cities. I wish to be able to exchange this for Russian not killing 10,000 of my fellow Ukrainians.”
Glazer’s speech marks the highest profile invocation of the Israel-Hamas war — and the first to be rooted in Jewish identity — during this awards season. It was notable, too, for calling out dehumanization also directed at the victims of Oct. 7.
At the Grammy Awards, Annie Lennox called for a ceasefire after her tribute to Sinead O’Connor.
At previous awards shows, members of Glazer’s team have mentioned the dehumanization central to the film. His producer, James Wilson, also tied the film to “innocent people killed in Gaza or Yemen” at the BAFTAs — the British Oscars. Composer Mica Levi, accepting their award from the London Critics Circle last month called for a ceasefire and “change” in the Middle East.
Numerous articles about The Zone of Interest, notably one by David Klion last week in The New York Times, saw in the film a parable for the suffering Gaza and the numbness onlookers might feel in the face of it.
Glazer dedicated his win to a woman named Alexandria who he met while researching the film. An unnamed character in the film, a Polish girl who planted fruit for prisoners in the trenches outside Auschwitz, was based on Alexandria, who told Glazer she had done just that when she was 12.
