Prominent filmmaker Mira Nair boycotts Haifa festival to protest Israeli 'apartheid'

Award-winning Indian filmmaker Mira Nair has reportedly turned down an invitation to be the guest of honor at the Haifa international film festival, or even to attend at all, saying she would not visit Israel until the "apartheid" has ended.

"I will go to Israel when occupation is gone," she wrote on Twitter on Friday evening, according to The Guardian. "I will go to Israel when the state does not privilege one religion over another. I will go to Israel when apartheid is over."

Nair had been invited to the festival to celebrate the 2013 release of her new film, The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Her previous films include Monsoon Wedding and Vanity Fair,

Nair joins writer Alice Walker and physicist Stephen Hawking, who accepted an invitation to the 2013 Israeli Presidential Conference by President Shimon Peres then canceled due to pressure from Palestinian activists and academics, in showing public support for Palestinians and boycotting cultural events in Israel. Full story...

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