Despite the efforts of Israeli lobby groups, a Palestinian film about the 1972 Munich Olympics events was screened at the Cannes Film Festival’s Marche Marche du Film in Paris Monday as planned.
An excerpt of Nasri Hajjaj’s documentary, Munich: A Palestinian Story, was shown to film industry professionals in partnership with the Cannes Film Festival and the Dubai International Film Festival.
Hajjaj’s documentary came under attack by Israeli lobby groups who claimed that the film wrongly accuses German security forces for the deaths of 11 Israeli athletes, a German police officer and five hostage-takers at the 1972 Munich Olympics after a raid by the Palestinian group Black September.
The biggest lobby group, Council of Jewish Organizations in France claimed that the film was an example of “historical revisionism” about the event.
Lobby groups reportedly put intense pressure on the organizers for the film to be banned.
Hajjaj, a former journalist who grew up in a Palestinian refugee camp, said that lobby groups and other critics made false claims about his documentary, which none of them have seen.
“Eight films have been made on the Munich chapter, but none of them are Palestinian or Arab. I want to present the Palestinian version of this story, which is not necessarily uncritical of the operation and its sequences,” Hajjaj was quoted as saying on the Dubai International Film Festival website.