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Academy board to meet as response to No Other Land director’s arrest decried
Meeting follows letter signed by prominent members urging more forceful response on Hamdan Ballal’s arrest
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has convened an extraordinary meeting to address a crisis over its tepid response to the arrest and detention of Oscar-winning director Hamdan Ballal, of the documentary No Other Land, by Israeli authorities. The meeting on Friday morning Pacific time, first reported by Deadline, follows a strongly worded letter signed by many prominent members – including actors Olivia Colman, Javier Bardem, Joaquin Phoenix, Penélope Cruz and Emma Thompson, directors Ava DuVernay, Alfonso Cuarón, Adam McKay and Jonathan Glazer and writer Tony Kushner – calling for a more forceful response from the Academy’s board of governors than an initial statement that did not refer to Ballal or No Other Land by name and cited the Academy membership’s “many unique viewpoints.” Therefore we are issuing our own statement, which speaks for the undersigned members of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.” Other notable signatories include: actors Natasha Lyonne, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Riz Ahmed, John Cusack, Elizabeth Olsen and Marisa Tomei; directors Errol Morris, Todd Haynes, and Boots Riley; and documentarians Laura Poitras, Liz Garbus and Alex Gibney, among others.
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