Lebanese director Marie-Rose Osta condemns 'Israeli' violence in Gaza, Lebanon at Berlinale
Note: AI technology was used to generate this article’s audio.
- Lebanese filmmaker Marie-Rose Osta uses her Berlinale acceptance speech to denounce the war on Gaza and attacks on southern Lebanon.
- She accuses global powers of enabling genocidal crimes through vetoes and the erosion of international law.
Lebanese director Marie-Rose Osta delivered a forceful rebuke of the war on Gaza during her acceptance speech at the Berlin International Film Festival, drawing prolonged applause after a moment of stunned silence in the auditorium.
Osta was honored for her film Someday a Child, a work centered on a boy with imaginary superpowers. She used the contrast between fiction and reality to highlight the vulnerability of children in Gaza, across Palestine, and in Lebanon.
From fiction to lived reality
In her speech, Osta described how the child in her film can stop fighter jets that disturb his sleep.
"That is cinema," she said. "But in reality, children in Gaza, in all of Palestine, and in my Lebanon do not have superpowers to protect them from Israeli bombs."
Read more: “Voice of Hind Rajab” director rejects Berlin award in protest over Gaza
She underscored that the sounds of war are not metaphorical for families in the region but a daily threat. Osta noted that four children were killed in Lebanon the day before her speech, while countless Palestinian martyrs, many of them children, continue to fall in Gaza.
Accusation of global complicity
Osta moved beyond a humanitarian appeal to a pointed political charge, linking the violence to failures at the international level.
"No child should need superpowers to survive a genocide empowered by veto powers and the collapse of international law," she said, in a clear reference to the United Nations Security Council and repeated blocks on ceasefire efforts.
Read more: Arab League condemns US ambassador’s extreme remarks on ‘Israel’
Her remarks echo a growing chorus within the global cultural community accusing powerful states of shielding 'Israel' from accountability amid ongoing aggression and ethnic cleansing.
Berlinale as a forum for dissent
The Berlinale has long positioned itself as the most politically outspoken of Europe’s major film festivals. Osta’s intervention follows days of protests and statements by artists demanding an end to the war on Gaza.
She closed by reframing her award as a moral statement rather than a personal honor.
"If this award means anything at all," Osta said, "let it mean that Lebanese and Palestinian children are not negotiable."
Her speech reinforced how international cultural platforms are increasingly being used to challenge silence around Gaza and to confront the global order that allows the violence to continue.
