Ahead of the opening of the 62nd New York Film Festival this evening, dozens of this year’s featured filmmakers, including Mike Leigh (Hard Truths), Julia Loktev (My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow), Neo Sora (Happyend), Basel Adra, Hamdam Ballal and Yuval Abraham (No Other Land), Truong Minh Quý (Viet and Nam) and Carson Lund (Eephus) have published an open letter saying that in the face of Israel’s near year-long “brutal onslaught of killing, maiming and displacement” of Palestinians in Gaza, they are “acting collectively towards ending the complicity of our institutions”.

Top filmmakers urge New York Film Festival to drop sponsor complicit in Israel’s war crimes