Hollywood should be ashamed of the way it has treated stars like Susan Sarandon, Javier Bardem and Mark Ruffalo for opposing Israel over the war against Hamas in Gaza, a member of the Cannes Film Festival jury claimed Tuesday, with big studios conspicuously absent this year.

Paul Laverty, who wrote two films that won Cannes’ top prize, was cheered as he lambasted the studios and praised the French festival for using an image of Sarandon in “Thelma and Louise” for its poster this year.

“Isn’t it fascinating to see Susan Sarandon, Javier Bardem and Mark Ruffalo blacklisted because of their views in opposing the murder of women and children in Gaza? Shame on Hollywood, people who do that,” the Scottish-born writer, who was arrested last year for the anti-Israel group Palestine Action, added.

“They’re the best of us,” said Laverty, who won best screenplay at Cannes for Ken Loach’s “I, Daniel Blake” and “The Wind that Shakes the Barley.”

“I just hope we don’t get bombed now,” he joked.

Sarandon was dropped by her US agents and accused of antisemitism in 2023 after she told a pro-Palestinian rally in New York that people “afraid of being Jewish at this time are getting a taste of what it feels........

© The Times of Israel