Mubi film distributor faces backlash over investor's ties to Israeli military

The Guardian

4 days ago

More film-makers are calling on Mubi, the upstart distributor which ushered The Substance to box office success and awards acclaim last year, to end its relationship with an investment firm with close ties to the Israeli military.
A letter strongly criticizing the buzzy distribution company's funding from the investor Sequoia Capital now has 63 signatures from creatives who have either made films released by Mubi, featured on its platform or acted in a project tied to the company. Radu Jude, Aki Kaurismäki, Miguel Gomes, Sarah Friedland, Joshua Oppenheimer and Cherien Dabis were among the first to sign the letter, first published by Variety on 30 July. More followed, including the Israeli directors Ari Folman (Waltz with Bashir) and Nadav Lapid (Synonyms, Ahed's Knee); Amalia Ulman, whose second feature Magic Farm was released by Mubi earlier this year; and Alex Russell, whose debut feature Lurker was acquired by Mubi out of Sundance for release later this month.
The backlash stems from an announcement in May that Mubi – which recently went on a buying spree at the Cannes film festival, acquiring the rights to Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson movie Die My Love – had secured $100m in funding from Sequoia Capital.
The Silicon Valley-based investment firm has poured money into a range of companies, from Apple to Google to Cisco, but Mubi marked a rare foray into entertainment. At issue is its investment in and continued ties to Kela, a defense tech firm founded by four veterans of the Israeli military in July 2024, more than six months after Israel's invasion of Gaza, which has killed more than 60,000 people and led to humanitarian catastrophe.
Kela is currently developing a battlefield operating system enabling militaries to integrate AI with commercial technology. According to Sequoia's website, it led Kela's $10m seed funding last year. This spring, Kela secured an additional $60m in a funding round led by Sequoia, Lux Capital and In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the CIA.
'Mubi's financial growth as a company is now explicitly tied to the genocide in Gaza, which implicates all of us that work with Mubi,' the letter reads. 'We too believe that cinema can be powerful. And we know that we can't always control how audiences will respond to our work, and whether or not it will move and inspire them. But we can control how our work reflects our values and commitments – ones that are wholly ignored when our work is brought into alliance with a genocide-profiteering private equity firm.'
It continued: 'We don't believe an arthouse film platform can meaningfully support a global community of cinephiles while also partnering with a company invested in murdering Palestinian artists and film-makers.'
Mubi has yet to respond publicly to the letter. In the wake of social media backlash over its ties to Sequoia, a message on the company's social media channels said the rationale for the investment was to 'accelerate our mission of delivering bold and visionary films to global audiences', and that the venture firm had a '50-plus year history of partnering with founders to help turn their ideas into world-changing businesses'.
'Over the last several days, some members of our community have commented on the decision to work with Sequoia given their investment in Israeli companies and the personal opinions expressed by one of their partners,' it said. 'The beliefs of individual investors do not reflect the views of Mubi.'
Signatories of the letter called on Mubi to take the three steps demanded by Film Workers for Palestine, an international collective that claims to represent more than 9,000 industry workers: publicly condemn Sequoia Capital for 'genocide profiteering'; remove Sequoia partner Andrew Reed from Mubi's board of directors; and instate an ethical policy for all future Mubi investments. The signatories also called on Mubi to respect guidelines on programming and partnerships set by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel).
The letter follows international backlash to Mubi's ties to Sequoia, with multiple venues and programming partners around the world announcing the end of their partnerships or the cancellation of events. Glasgow's Centre for Contemporary Arts, Mexico City's Cineteca Nacional and the Cinemateca de Bogotá all pulled out of Mubi Fest, a multi-continent film festival initially planned to take place in 12 cities. Last week, the Valdivia film festival in Chile said it would not screen any film distributed by Mubi, with the festival director attributing that decision to funding from Sequoia.
'We realized that Mubi has truly voided the position it once held as a bastion for independent creatives and audiences in the industry,' the organization Girls in Film said of their decision to end a seven-year programming partnership with Mubi. 'Mubi as a company has considered the trade-off between commercial growth and the livelihoods of the marginalized and downtrodden, and chosen growth.'
Additionally, the film-maker Eddie Huang said in an Instagram post that Mubi had 'shelved' his documentary, Vice Is Broke, after he spoke out against the Sequoia investment. The director claimed that Mubi wanted to make an 'example' out of him after he protested about its ties to the destruction of Gaza and decided to sit out Mubi's promotion of his film. In response, a Mubi spokesman said that the film was not shelved, and that the company was in 'constructive discussions' with Huang on its release.
The backlash comes as the situation in Gaza has passed several milestones, with many Palestinians facing mass starvation. Last week, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a panel of experts from the UN and other aid organizations, confirmed that 'the worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip,' due to Israel's continuedsevere restrictions on aid, leading to 'catastrophic human suffering'.
The Guardian has reached out to Mubi for comment.