A Chicago movie theater that canceled a screening of a pro-Israel comedian’s documentary at the last minute will be reinstating the screening, the comedian said Friday.
Kosha Dillz, the Israeli-American rapper and comic whose real name is Rami Even-Esh, says the theater, Facets, has agreed to show the movie, titled Bring The Family Home. Press attention and calls from Jewish groups objecting to the theater’s decision were what prompted Facets management to reconsider, he said.
“This is incredible. I was practically crying on the Zoom,” the rapper told The Hollywood Reporter. A new screening will be set for the next several weeks.
Facets, a longtime arthouse venue in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood, canceled the screening just hours before it was to take place Tuesday. Dillz had been scheduled to show the movie and take the stage with Michael Kaminsky, a DePaul University student who had allegedly been punched and harassed with antisemitic slurs on campus after making pro-Israel statements in what police called a hate crime. Dillz did end up showing the film at a theater in suburban Wilmette as groups such as the American Jewish Committee in Chicago and the newer Chicago Jewish Alliance objected to Facets’ decision.
“I call it exclusion — it’s ‘Don’t do business with Jews,’ which is the kind of antisemitism we deal with now,” Dillz said, speaking by phone from Northern California, where he was scheduled for a number of performance dates and shot footage at Cal on Friday. “I just wanted to pay the rental fee and do business with Facets and they wouldn’t accept that.” Dillz said he even offered to have the theater show the film without any promotion on the marquee or website to avoid drawing attention to it, but Facets leadership declined.
Yet on Friday, the theater appeared to have reversed course. “In retrospect we recognize that this was an overreaction and not consistent with our mission,” they said in a statement Dillz posted to his Instagram.
Though the theater cited security, their initial Instagram post about the cancelation sent mixed signals.
“Based on the public posts made by Kosha Dillz and the overall tone surrounding the event, we determined that proceeding would not align with our values or our responsibility to protect the safety and well-being of our community,” Facets said, without elaborating on what they were referring to. “We reject antisemitism in all forms — just as we reject Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian racism, and any form of hate or dehumanization.”
An official from the theater did not immediately reply to a request for comment Friday.
The movie, an hourlong work-in-progress documentary, shows Dillz traveling to various campus protests such as DePaul University in Chicago and Chapman University in Orange County where he playfully tries to engage pro-Palestine protesters, often playing the sidekick to their straight man; at times he is greeted harassingly, though he acknowledges his appearances lean mischievous.
The rapper says he will now shoot the ending to the movie at the rescheduled Facets screening.
Dillz had previously gone viral for a light-hearted Hanukkah song he performed with the rapper Nisim Black on the streets of New York in 2021, and has also recorded with the likes of The RZA and other well-known artists.
In the interview, Dillz said he was just trying to show how people on various sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide don’t talk to each other. “And in a way our screening being canceled proved the point,” he said. “I don’t know, it’s all so meta.”
Pro-Israel and pro-Palestine content has been a hot subject at the box office this spring, with films such as No Other Land and October 8 both racking up business, though not always from the same customers. Facets has been showing No Other Land.
In a charged political atmosphere, though, even what movies to screen or air has become fraught. No major streamer or theatrical distributor would pick up No Other Land, while Cinemark did not play October 8.
Dillz says he feels that in its own small way the Facets decision cuts through some of that polarization.
“It’s a happy ending,” he said when asked about how viewed the upshot. “But there’ll still be [protest] calls, there are still people who won’t see it. I want everyone to see No Other Land, I want everyone to see my movie. We just all need to listen more.”
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