February 2003. The transatlantic forecast was cold and overcast, with winter squalls and a chance of chemical or nuclear warfare. The immediate post-9/11 era was not a great time to travel. I went to the Berlin Film Festival to present an American Cinema Foundation prize named for Polish director Andrzej Wajda, for merit and courage in filmmaking. Chosen by a jury from eastern and central Europe, that year the winner was Russian filmmaker Alexander Sokurov.

After months of a military buildup, much of the world was apprehensive to the point of dread about an impending special military operation: America was about to launch war in the Middle East, and we made no secret of it. Most of our allies begged us to reconsider. By 2003, the goodwill we retained from the end of the Cold War had waned; the worldwide admiration we’d earned with our prosperity was rapidly fading with it. Yet not one of the invited guests connected our American prize to war in Iraq. Russian, Polish, and German officials came to the award ceremony in a gesture of post-WWII, post Cold War reconciliation. Today, with Ukraine as the backdrop, the Polish Film Institute, the European Film Academy, and others are calling for boycotts of Russian films and cultural events. I understand the emotion, but I think it would be a mistake, not just culturally or morally. It would be a fateful blunder.