Susan Sarandon leads a letter that requires BBC Air Gaza Medies -Documentary
Oscar -winner Susan Sarandon, the much -praised filmmaker Mike Leigh and Channel 4 International Editor Lindsey Hilsum belong to more than 600 prominent figures who have signed an open letter in which the BBC is encouraged to broadcast the delayed documentary “Gaza: Medies Under Fire”.
The letter, addressed to BBC director-general Tim Davie, explains “deep concern about the censorship of Palestinian voices” and calls for the immediate release of the documentary, which follows medical employees in Gaza. The signatories include 130 anonymous participants, with more than a dozen identified as BBC employees.
“Gaza: Medies Under Fire” was produced by a award-winning team, including Emmy and Peabody receivers Ben de Pear, Karim Shah and Ramita Navai. Originally planned to be broadcast in January, the documentary “indefinitely delayed” despite reported “rigorous editorial control” and several facts controls.
“This is not editorial caution. It is political oppression,” says the letter. “The BBC has not given a timeline, no transparency. Such decisions strengthen the systemic devaluation of Palestinian lives in our media.”
The production company, basement films, is quoted in the letter stating that they “are desperate for a confirmed release date to be able to tell the surviving doctors and doctors when their stories will be told.”
Other remarkable signers are actors Miriam Margolyes, Maxine Peake and Juliet Stevenson, Comieken Frankie Boyle and Alexei Sayle, and numerous journalists, filmmakers and media professionals.
The letter is concluded with a direct question: “We demand a release date for ‘Gaza: Meds Under Fire’ – now, with the argument that” no news organization should quietly choose behind closed doors whose stories are worth telling. “
Variety has contacted the BBC for comment.
The controversy comes in the midst of an increased control of the Gaza coverage of BBC. In February, the broadcaster was confronted with a return on another Gaza documentary, “Gaza: How to Survive A Warzone”, which after revelations from the streaming platform was removed that his teenager storyteller was the son of a Hamas officer. The BBC then recognized ‘serious errors’ in that production process and started an assessment, which states that ‘nothing is more important than trust and transparency in our journalism’.
