Film Industry Watch recently received the following account from a producer responding to our reporting on how public film funding in Europe is actually decided.

It is one testimony, not a court ruling. But it is also the kind of testimony we keep hearing, from different countries, in different forms, with the same basic architecture underneath: the same names, the same insiders, the same production companies, the same festivals, the same boards, and the same contempt for anyone who asks how the machine actually works.

According to the producer, the experience began in Cannes around nine years ago, after the release of an independent film in New Zealand. That release made them eligible to join a producers program. What followed, they say, was not an introduction to a merit-based cultural system, but to something far more revealing.

“In the daily round table conversations with the industry it soon became clear: indie film uses schemes. That’s what they actually teach you and call it.”

That line is worth pausing on. Publicly, European film funding is sold as cultural stewardship, support for talent, and the protection of artistic diversity. Privately, what many filmmakers encounter is something else: an insider structure dressed up as public service.

The producer says the atmosphere in Cannes was unmistakable.

“What struck me was the fact, everyone knew eachother. Like true buddies sharing a secret.”

That is a familiar description. One of the recurring problems in European film culture is that a closed circle is endlessly rebranded as an “ecosystem.” A network of recurring decision-makers is presented as a community. Structural concentration is reframed as professional trust.

And if you point out that the same people seem to rotate between funding bodies, festivals, production companies, juries, labs, and advisory positions, you are treated not as someone asking an obvious public-interest question, but as someone violating the etiquette of the room.

That is precisely what the producer describes. According to the email, things became tense when they asked why funding seemed to keep going to the same production companies, including companies connected to people sitting on boards and festivals.

“It became weird when I started asking questions about how funding always went to the same production companies that also sit in boards, festivals and are often producers them selves.”

The response, they say, was not transparency. It was deferral. A short, vague answer, followed by a suggestion that the matter be discussed privately at a Dutch Film Fund drinks event later that week.

“A fluffy 30 second answer ended by stating we should talk about this separately on the Dutch FilmFund drinks night.”

That detail says plenty on its own. Public money. Public institutions. Public-interest questions. Private drinks.

According to the producer, when they arrived at the event, they were not on the guest list and were treated like people trying to crash an important industry gathering. The same person who was supposed to explain the details allegedly passed by the entrance, did not acknowledge them, and offered no real answer once inside.

“But if I wanted I could come in and drink a free Heineken dutch beer.”

The image is almost too perfect: not an explanation, not accountability, not openness, just a free beer and a social brush-off. Later, the producer says, when they tried again to start the conversation, the woman in question “rolled her eyes and walked away.”

Then comes the central allegation in the email: that behind the soft language of industry development lies a much narrower production bottleneck.

“It’s like an oldfashion guild: you need to be able to work with one of the 3 production companies before applying for funding. If they don’t go along with it, no funding.”

That is the heart of it. If true, it means the issue is not merely favoritism at the margins. It means access itself is structured through a narrow gate. You are not really applying into an open field. You are being filtered through a small number of approved channels.

The producer goes further:

“The funding can only go through these companies, so they decide what is being produced.”

And then further still:

“The money is simply being shared between these companies and they roll the dice who is to win a price at what event.”

That is the producer’s allegation, and it should be read as such. But it lands because it fits a broader pattern many filmmakers already recognize: when funding, prestige, festival circulation, and institutional reputation all pass through overlapping networks, the claim that outcomes are purely artistic becomes harder and harder to take seriously.

The email also argues that the system’s influence does not stop at production.

“Next to that they fully control what’s playing in the film theaters since they do the funding. Hence we all get to see the same films in the whole of Europe.”

Again, the language is blunt. But the underlying point is hard to dismiss. If the same ecosystem shapes development, production, festival legitimacy, and distribution pathways, then what audiences see is not simply “the best work.” It is often the work that passed through the approved loop.

That has cultural consequences. The public is told it is being offered diversity, while in practice it is often being handed variation within a controlled range. Different countries, similar aesthetics. Different languages, similar ideological packaging. Endless talk of risk-taking from institutions built to minimize actual risk.

The producer’s description of how young talent is absorbed into this structure is particularly bleak.

“If you are talented you might end up at one of these 3 companies as a junior, sucked dry for great ideas and once your puppy trained and know the system you might be eligible to become a producer after 10 – 15 years and share in the revenue. A groom system at best.”

It is ugly language, but it captures a reality many emerging filmmakers describe more politely: semi-permanent apprenticeship, slow permission, endless gatekeeping, and a career ladder that often seems to reward compliance as much as talent. Public funding is meant to widen access. Too often, it appears to formalize dependence.

The producer ultimately decided to step back from the system altogether.

“So, after that experience we were taking 10 steps back from the industry.”

Instead of continuing to chase institutional approval, they say they turned toward direct audience access.

“Luckily YouTube is a great way to play your material we recently found out.”

After ten years behind a paywall, they put their film online. Their conclusion is striking not because it is idealistic, but because it is disillusioned.

“We decided that filmmaking is a passion and will never pay for our mortgage.”

That sentence alone says more about the actual economics of “supported cinema” than most industry panels do in an hour.

The email ends with the line that probably explains why so many institutions fear independent distribution, direct access, and voices that refuse to play along:

“I will never try and get funding anymore. I’m not a beggar that can’t choose. I’m a chooser that refuses to beg.”

There it is. The real insult to the system is not criticism. It is refusal.

Because systems like this do not merely run on money. They run on prestige hunger, dependency, and the belief that legitimacy lives inside the maze. The lab. The market badge. The drinks list. The closed-door panel. The nod from the people who already know each other.

The moment filmmakers stop believing that, the spell starts to weaken.

Not every funded film is corrupt. Not every producer inside the system is compromised. Not every institution operates in exactly the same way. But the pattern is now too familiar, and the testimonies too consistent, to dismiss as bitterness or misunderstanding.

Across Europe, the public is told it is funding artistic openness. Too often, it seems to be funding managed circulation within a narrow class of insiders.

The public pays for pluralism. It keeps getting repetition.

If you have seen similar patterns in film funds, festival programs, training labs, or public funding bodies, contact Film Industry Watch confidentially.

The post Another Producer Describes the Same Closed Loop in European Film Funding“Everyone knew each other. Like true buddies sharing a secret.” first appeared on Film Industry Watch.

The Israeli film industry likes to talk about diversity, bold voices and creative risk. On paper, it is a vibrant scene. In reality, it is a tiny, self-reinforcing circuit of insiders who teach one another, fund one another, program one another, and then review one another’s work in the press.

Two recent reviews in the mainstream outlet Ynet, both written by the same critic and both praising films by his own colleagues at Tel Aviv University’s film department, reveal just how tight and self-referential that loop has become.

This is not an isolated anecdote. It fits neatly into decades-long pattern that FIW has already documented in detail in our report “ISRAEL: Decades Long Alleged Corruption at the Rabinowitz & Gesher Film Funds”: alleged revolving doors, readers who are also beneficiaries rotating between the two, overlapping festival juries and filmmakers, and public money circulating inside the same small circle of people. What we’re seeing now with academic critics and their colleagues is simply another branch of the same tree.

Case 1: “Nana Dauri” – the review that quietly admits the conflict, but only at the end of the review

The first example is “Nana Dauri” (“נאנדאורי”), directed by Eti Tsiko. Tsiko is a faculty member at the Steve Tisch School of Film and Television at Tel Aviv University. The critic who reviewed her film on Ynet, Shmulik Duvdevani, is also a faculty member at that same film school. He gives the film a glowing four-star review.

Buried towards the end of the piece he adds a casual aside: a brief “גילוי נאות” (“disclosure”) that they are colleagues at the university. For most readers, it’s a throwaway line. For anyone who cares about governance, it’s a red flag. A meaningful disclosure would be:

• placed at the top of the article, not hidden in the body towards the end of the review and
• ideally explaining why the critic chose to review a colleague’s film in the first place.

That doesn’t happen here. The conflict is “technically” acknowledged, but practically neutralized. Worse, this is not the only overlap. According to the Jerusalem Film Festival’s own publications, Tsiko also serves on the festival’s International Programming Committee. In other words, she is a gatekeeper at one of Israel’s major festivals, where her own films (in plural) compete and win.

Taken together – the hidden-in-plain-sight disclosure, the shared academic affiliation, the glowing review, and the programming role at the same festival where the film is rewarded – the structure is hard to ignore. This is not an open field, it’s a closed loop.

Case 2: “Kvish HaSArgeL” – when there isn’t even a disclosure

If the first case could be dismissed as a one-off lapse, the second one makes that impossible. On 2 February 2025, Ynet published another raving, four-star review by the same critic, Shmulik Duvdevani. This time, the subject was “Kvish HaSargel” (“כביש הסרגל”), a feature by Maya Dreifuss. Dreifuss is also a filmmaker and also a faculty member in the same Tel Aviv University film department. In this review, there is no disclosure at all. No mention of the fact that critic and director share the same institutional home. No hint that the review is of a colleague’s film. To the reader, it appears as purely independent judgment. To anyone looking at the structure, it is anything but.

When a critic reviews one colleague and buries the conflict in the end of the text, then reviews another colleague from the same department with no disclosure whatsoever – and both reviews are emphatically positive – what you have is not a coincidence. You have a pattern. And that pattern sits in a broader ecosystem FIW has already chronicled: a system where the same small number of people cycle through roles as project readers, fund beneficiaries, festival jurors, programmers, union heads who receive funding as directors, fund CEOs handing money to business partners, and now academic reviewers. It is an ecosystem designed to reward people already inside it.

The Israeli Film Club, Where Only Members are allowed In

From funds to festivals to film schools, the Israeli film industry operates as one small club. In our long-form investigation “ISRAEL: Decades Long Alleged Corruption at the Rabinowitz & Gesher Film Funds”, FIW documented:

• alleged revolving doors between film funds and the Israeli Film Council,
• readers who simultaneously evaluated scripts and received financing from the same funds,
• festival jurors whose own films were in competition at those festivals,
• fund CEOs and artistic directors allegedly intervening in funding rounds,
• and a disproportionate share of public money flowing to a small cluster of producers and companies.
• That report showed how public film funds can become self-serving machines: a handful of decision-makers allegedly shaping what gets made, who gets financed, and who gets shut out – year after year.
  
  Now add to this:
• university departments where key faculty direct films,
• critics at major outlets who are drawn from the same departments,
• faculty who sit on festival programming or guest roles,
• and those festivals serving as the main platform for “serious” Israeli cinema.

What we see now with Tel Aviv University, Ynet, and the Jerusalem Film Festival is the same logic in a different corner of the system. The critic doesn’t just happen to like two films. He is embedded in the same institutional network as their directors. One of those directors is also a programmer at a major festival. That festival, like others, has a documented history of overlapping jurors and filmmakers, including one who has been mentioned on the site multiple times in relation to other conflicts of interests. The funds feeding the industry have documented allegations of revolving doors between evaluators and beneficiaries.

At some point, we should stop calling this “unfortunate optics” and start calling it what it structurally is: a closed, self-congratulatory circle of a small group constantly validating, rewarding and amplifying one another, while presenting the result as objective merit and open competition.

What this means for anyone outside the circle

For filmmakers who did not study in the “right” school (there are only two of them), did not pass through the “right” labs, did not work for the funds, did not intern at the festivals, and do not share offices or corridors with the critics – in other words, not part of the circle – the message is clear: you are not really part of Israeli cinema’s inner ring. If you are an outsider – someone who didn’t pass through this network of film schools, funds, festivals, and media – your chances of breaking in are tiny. You are competing not just with other films, but with an entire web of institutional loyalties and mutual dependencies. And as our readers from Israel have told us repeatedly, this does not just shape who gets reviews or festival slots – it shapes who gets money, who gets distribution, who gets prizes, and ultimately, who gets to have a career.

Why disclosure and recusal are the absolute minimum

This is why disclosure is not a technicality. It is the bare minimum of honesty. A critic must tell readers when:

• they review a colleague’s work,
• they share an employer or department,
• they’ve worked with the filmmaker in another capacity.

A festival must tell audiences when:

• programmers have films in competition,
• jurors are connected to participating films,
• funders and decision-makers hold overlapping institutional roles.

Public funds must be transparent about:

• who reads,
• who decides,
• who sits on councils,
• and who receives the money.

Israel’s film ecosystem consistently fails on multiple points. The two Ynet reviews are simply the most visible, easy-to-understand examples.

Israel’s film institutions could take immediate steps to restore trust:

• Require prominent disclosures in all reviews where critic and filmmaker share an institutional home.
• Prohibit festival programmers from participating in competitions where their own films are present, or require full removal and transparent recusal.
• Publish the names and roles of festival committees, funds’ readers, and council members, along with their industry connections.
• Establish term limits and cooling-off periods for key roles in film funds and councils, as FIW has already recommended in relation to the Rabinowitz and Gesher funds.
• Treat conflicts of interest as a design problem, not an inconvenience.

None of this would prevent good films from being made. It would simply let audiences believe that when a film is praised or funded, it is because of what is on the screen – not who the director shares a coffee machine, a classroom, or a committee with.

Right of Reply

Tel Aviv University, Ynet, the Jerusalem Film Festival, the Rabinowitz Foundation, the Gesher Fund, and the individuals named in this article are invited to respond. FIW will publish clarifications or statements in full or in relevant part. All information in this report is based solely on publicly available records and materials submitted by readers. No allegation of unlawful conduct is made. All parties are presumed to have acted in good faith unless proven otherwise.

Share Information Securely – Confidential Submissions Are Welcome

FIW relies on filmmakers, insiders, students, and cultural workers who are willing to share what institutions prefer to keep quiet. If you have information about:

• undisclosed overlaps,
• film fund practices,
• festival juries and programming,
• academic–industry ties,
• or any other structural issues in Israeli cinema,
  

we encourage you to contact us – anonymously if necessary. We do not collect IP addresses or technical identifiers. You can submit securely at: https://filmindustrywatch.org/contact/

The post Friends Reviewing Friends: Conflicts of Interest in Israeli press & Cinema first appeared on Film Industry Watch.