Sharing the news on Twitter, he said that in solidarity with Mohammed El Kurd and the Palestinian people, he has withdrawn his film 'Heaven 58' from a film festival hosted by the Goethe Institute. "The Goethe Institute recently withdrew an invitation from El Kurd, showing their anti-Palestinian and pro-Zionist stance," he said.
He also attached a screenshot of an email he wrote, presumably to the film festival organizers, informing them of his decision.
https://twitter.com/BhuttoZulfikar/status/1549293907720241154
In the email, he wrote that it had recently come to his attention that the film festival was being hosted by the Goethe Institute, which is why he was withdrawing his film now. He added, "As a matter of solidarity with the Palestinian people, I refuse to participate in any Goethe Institute events."
Similarly, last month British-Pakistani writer Mohammed Hanif withdrew from the Goethe Institute’s conference, which was held in Hamburg in June, to protest the organizers’ act of disinviting Palestinian writer and poet Mohammed El-Kurd.
“Withdrawing from Goethe Institute’s Hamburg conference where they first invited and then disinvited Palestinian journalist and poet Mohammed El-Kurd. [The] reason is even more offensive. Apparently Kurd is not respectful enough towards Israel,” Hanif had said in a tweet.
He also attached a link to read Kurd’s poetry collection and asked the public to decide who was being 'disrespectful' in this case.
Earlier on June 17, the institute had said: “After some consideration, the Goethe Institute decided that Mohammed El-Kurd was not an appropriate speaker for this forum. In previous posts on social media, he had made several comments about Israel in a way the Goethe Institute does not find acceptable.”