PARK CITY, Utah — An anti-Israel march that included “Scream” actress Melissa Barrera’s boots disrupted the Sundance Film Festival on Sunday, holding up traffic as Hollywood’s elite attended movie premieres and parties nearby.
Barrera, 33 – who appeared in “Scream VI” but was fired from the seventh “Scream” film because of his controversial remarks about the war – joined the hours-long protest in the middle of the street as it clogged the city’s historic main thoroughfare and delayed festival-goers making they walk to and from the event.
Barrera was let go from the horror film in November after posting on Instagram, “Gaza is now being treated like a concentration camp… THIS IS NATION FORMATION & ETHNIC CLEANSING.”
He stars in the new Sundance film “Your Monster.”
A group of about 100 “Let Gaza Live” protesters chanted “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!” and “We are tired of funding Israel! Shame on Israel!” while holding signs that read “Butcher Biden,” “De-platform Zionism” and “Intifada Everywhere.”
A crowd chant seemed to approve of the October 7 Hamas attack on an Israeli music festival, in which 1,200 people, mostly Israeli civilians, were killed and hundreds more taken hostage.
“Rejection is justified when people are occupied,” shouted the crowd.
Fired “Scream” actress Melissa Barrera joins protest in Park City, Utah. Getty Images for IMDb
The event was organized by the Utah Palestine Solidarity Association, which said in a statement, “While the bombs are falling, people cannot continue to watch movies on their screens while ignoring the carnage in Gaza.”
Most of the protesters appeared to come from outside the city, although some festival-goers, including Barerra, joined their ranks or honked their car horns in solidarity.
However, at least one passer-by shouted, “Go home!”
An anti-Israel protest was held during the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, on Sunday. Johnny Oleksinski
The festival clarified it had nothing to do with the protest, adding in a statement, “While the organizers have nothing to do with the festival itself, the safety and security of our festival goers is always our concern, and we are consistently working. with local law enforcement to uphold a welcoming, inspiring and safe environment for all our attendees.”
On the first day of Sundance, where Hollywood gathers every January to premiere independent films, an online group was formed called, “Film Workers For Palestine.”
The website has received hundreds of signatures from directors such as Mike Leigh and actresses Susan Sarandon and Alia Shawkat.
On Friday, the group tweeted: “To be clear – we hold a film festival fully complicit in affirming consent to genocide. #Sundance takes money from Zionists and reinforces their views while remaining silent on Palestine.”
Taking place at the same time as the protest about a mile away at the Ray Theater was a panel on antisemitism called “Sects, Lies and Videotape: Unraveling the deadly stories about Jews and Israel in TV, film and media.”
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
