BERLIN: The head of Berlin´s international film festival will stay in the post despite controversy over a film director´s anti-Israel remarks at the event, the German culture minister´s office said on Wednesday. Tricia Tuttle had been under fire from some politicians after the comments by Syrian-Palestinian filmmaker Abdallah Al-Khatib, with some media reporting that culture minister Wolfram Weimer had sought to oust her from the job.
But after a meeting of the board of the state-owned KBB -- the company that runs the Berlinale -- on Wednesday, Weimer´s office said in a statement that it welcomed Tuttle´s willingness to “continue her work”. Angry rows over the Israel-Palestinian conflict have repeatedly rocked the Berlinale, held every February as Europe´s first major film festival of the year.
Tuttle also faced criticism for posing for a photo with some of the team behind Khatib´s film, “Chronicles from the Siege”.
