German film agency okays ‘anti-Semitic’ Turkish film

On Holocaust Remembrance Day Turkish film "Kurtlar Vadisi: Filistin (Valley of the Wolves: Palestine)" given green light.

By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENT
Valley of the wolves film 311 (photo credit: Courtesy)
Valley of the wolves film 311
(photo credit: Courtesy)
BERLIN – Germany’s FSK (Voluntary Self-Regulation of the Movie Industry) agency green-lighted on Thursday – International Holocaust Remembrance Day – the showing of the anti-Israel and reportedly anti-Semitic Turkish film Kurtlar Vadisi: Filistin (Valley of the Wolves: Palestine).
According to a spokeswoman of the Pera film distribution company in Cologne, it can be shown immediately in Germany.
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As of press time it was unclear whether German theaters would actually show the film on Thursday.
Austrian cinemas did show show it on Thursday.
FSK issued a statement on Thursday saying that children under the age of 18 are not permitted to see the film.
According to the statement, Valley of the Wolves contains “propaganda tendencies” and “repetitive violence.”
The film cost $10 million to make, making it the most expensive in Turkish cinematic history.
The movie, the second part of Valley of the Wolves media franchise, recreates IDF commandos’ interception of the Mavi Marmara protest ship to Gaza in May 2010, which resulted in the deaths of nine Turkish men.
Critics of the film say that Valley of the Wolves glorifies Hamas and the Turkish IHH organization that dispatched the ship.
Maya Zehden, spokeswoman for the 12,000-member Berlin Jewish community, told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday that the film is “agitational” and “is not good” for Jewish-Turkish relations in Germany or for Israel- Turkey relations.
The film denies Israel’s right to exist. Critics in Germany and Israel have slammed it for fanning the flames of contemporary anti-Semitism.
At the outset of the film, Polat Alemdar – the main character in Valley of the Wolves – announces, “I didn’t come to Israel, I came to Palestine.”
More than 3 million German Turks live in the Federal Republic.
The registered Jewish community membership totals 105,000.
Politicians from the Green Party and the Christian Social Union criticized the film this week.
Philipp Missfelder, a member of the ruling Christian Democratic Party, said it disrespects victims of the Holocaust, and Jerzy Montag of the Green Party called the movie “irresponsible.”