Irish singer CMAT has become the latest star to hit out at Berlin Film Festival jury president Wim Wenders’ suggestion that cinema should “stay out of politics”, with the Brit nominee saying to do so would be “cowardice”.
It comes just weeks after German filmmaker Wenders said that cinema should “do the work of people, not the work of politicians” when asked for the jury’s views on the German government’s “support of the genocide in Gaza” and the festival’s “selective treatment of human rights” issues.
Speaking at the Brit Awards on Saturday (28 February), CMAT – whose real name is Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson – criticised the suggestion that artists should stay out of politics, saying that she is “not a big fan of anyone trying to argue that art is not a political place”.
“Everything is politics. But more than ever, art is politics because you don’t get to make art in a fascist state,” she told The Guardian. “Fascism is on the rise in every single country in the world.”
Thompson added that fascism is “showing its ugly head in Ireland” as well as in the UK and America.
Addressing Wenders’ comments, she continued: “It’s cowardice. And I think it is showing that these people are extremely separate from how normal people live their everyday lives.
”You know, they’ve become successful artists. Become successful musicians, filmmakers, and so they have wiped their hands clean of having to do anything with the working classes or having to do anything with anyone who is oppressed in any nation because they have the luxury of doing that. And I don’t think that’s fair.” The Independent has contacted the Berlin Film Festival and Wim Wenders for comment.
Thompson isn’t afraid to shy away from politics herself, with the title track of her 2025 album Euro-Country warning of capitalism’s dangers and addressing the Irish economic crash of 2008. She was nominated for International Artist of the Year at the 2026 Brit Awards, but lost out to Spanish musician Rosalía.
The singer is not the first artist to criticise Winders – Booker Prize winner Arundhati Roy pulled out of the festival over his statement, saying that she was “shocked and disgusted” by the comments.
Earlier this month, Javier Bardem, Tilda Swinton and 79 other artists signed an open letter to the Berlin Film Festival organisers, questioning the “institutional silence on the genocide of Palestinians”. They said they were “dismayed” by the festival’s “involvement in censoring artists who oppose Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and the German state’s key role in enabling it”, and described incidents where filmmakers who spoke about Palestinians reported that they had been “aggressively reprimanded by senior festival programmers”.
“We stand with our colleagues in rejecting this institutional repression and anti-Palestinian racism,” the letter read. Don’t Look Up director Adam McKay, Game of Thrones’ Carice Van Houten and Tobias Menzies, She Hulk’s Tatiana Maslany and Portrait of a Lady on Fire star Adèle Haenel were among those who signed the letter.
