Tallinn University: Palestine propaganda smuggled into cinema without our knowledge

TALLINN - The Baltic Film, Media, and Arts School (BFM) of Tallinn University said on Thursday they have now discovered that anti-Israeli propaganda events have been staged in their cinema room on the university's premises, but these events have taken place without their knowledge, Postimees reported.

On Tuesday, the daily Eesti Päevaleht published an article in which Gaspar Šabad, politician from the Reform Party an advocate for Jewish rights, alleged that BFM's cinema screens propaganda-laden films filled with misinformation on a monthly basis.

BFM on Wednesday stated that this claim is false.

"Šabad's statement surprised us greatly," BFM's communications manager Margit Adorf said. "The list of films screened in BFM's cinema does not include pro-Palestinian films or any other propaganda films."

In support of his claim, Šabad provided screenshots from social media where events of this kind were promoted and the BFM logo was used.

After closer scrutiny, BFM revealed that such sessions had indeed been announced, but without the knowledge of the university.

"Regrettably, it has turned out that three documentaries were indeed shown as so-called guerrilla sessions, that is, by circumventing the TLÜ BFM official registration forms and also by lying about the films," Adorf said on Thursday.

"For example, the student association Meedium had registered a screening of their short films in the cinema room for November 2, but instead, they showed the documentary 'Naila and the Uprising' from a laptop. Therefore, this film was not listed in the cinema hall projectionist's schedule. The booking for the hall was made by our former student Mariann Jüriorg, who used the assistance of the administrative department of Tallinn University to make the reservation. The content of the events listed in the schedule did not correspond to reality," Adorf said.

"After making this discovery, we have modified the options for booking the hall and will subject the films shown there to closer scrutiny. Going forward, students will not be able to show films from their computers without the presence of a projectionist, and if a film is sent for a closed film screening that is not registered for screening there, it will not be shown to the audience," she added.

Mariann Jüriorg is no longer a student at BFM and has been residing in Dublin since 2022. Adorf also noted that the logo depicted on the posters has not been used by BFM for at least the past five years, as they have switched to a joint logo of TLÜ (Tallinn University) and BFM.