The Gaza massacre rocks the most star-studded Venice Film Festival in living memory.
Starting this Wednesday, some of the luckiest, most privileged, and most pampered people on the planet will gather in Venice. Even the word that defines them underlines their distance from Earth: stars. The 82nd edition of the world's oldest film festival kicks off with Paolo Sorrentino's The Grace . George Clooney, Cate Blanchett, Guillermo del Toro, Kathryn Bigelow, Emma Stone, Oscar Isaac, Sofia Coppola, Al Pacino, Jude Law, and Julia Roberts, among many others , will follow. One of the greatest floods of stars in living memory, and yet the festival has been hosting stars since the 1930s. Until September 6, many spotlights will be on the Lido, the island where the Mostra takes place. And, for that reason, a growing number of voices are calling for the festival not to forget those who occupy the opposite link : those who are starving.
The V4P (Venice for Palestine) movement, led by some 1,500 Italian and international film icons—including Marco Bellocchio, Matteo Garrone, Alice Rohrwacher, Ken Loach, and Céline Sciamma—sent a letter to the festival last Friday urging it to officially criticize the "genocide" Israel is perpetrating in Gaza. In a second, more recent letter, it requested the withdrawal of invitations from two celebrities, Gal Gadot and Gerard Butler, for having publicly positioned themselves in favor of the Netanyahu government. Instead of the performers, who are participating in Julian Schnabel's out-of-competition film, "In the Hand of Dante ," the text suggests that a delegation "with the Palestinian flag" should march. To which the festival responded that debate is always welcome, but never a ban. Instead of being silenced, the protests have only grown stronger. So, the Mostra hasn't even started and already has its first major controversy. With a good chance of it lasting longer and lasting throughout the entire event, there is currently a pro-Palestinian demonstration scheduled for this Saturday the 30th at the Lido itself.
“The Venice Biennale [which includes the Mostra] is a cultural institution, the most important in Italy, an open space for dialogue. Taking positions or making political statements is not our job. We welcome everyone; we have never censored an artist, nor will we do so now,” Alberto Barbera, the festival's artistic director, told EL PAÍS. “No one can doubt the Biennale's attitude and the clarity of its position on these tragic issues, nor believe that we are insensitive to what is happening,” he added. He cites the many films regularly presented—and more this year—by Iranian directors oppressed by the regime or by Ukrainian authors. And, above all, he points out that the official competition includes The Voice of Hind Rajab by Kaouther Ben Hania, which recounts the murder by Israeli troops of a five-year-old Gazan girl , using the original audio recordings of the little girl's distress calls to the Red Crescent. "The fact that we elected him shows that not only do we have no hesitation, but that, in some way, we are aware of and stand by the victims of this absurd war," Barbera reiterates.
V4P itself has celebrated the film's presence in the running for the Golden Lion, which is being screened on the same day as In the Hand of Dante . However, they don't think this is enough. Over the decades, the Venice Film Festival has often intersected with history: it has witnessed wars, revolutions, canceled editions, and even a pandemic. For those who speak out, the massacre in Gaza represents another momentous occasion and demands something more. Donatella Finocchiaro, a member of V4P and star of Leonardo di Costanzo's Elisa , also in competition, told La Repubblica : “In this context, Israeli artists who support and finance the government cannot parade in Venice and receive applause. It's unbearable. […] Saying 'We are open to dialogue' means not taking sides. And now we have to speak openly.”
The two actors in question did so. Butler participated in a 2018 gala organized by Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, which raised $60 million for the troops; Gadot was a soldier in the same army between 2005 and 2006 and later became a combat instructor. She is also accused of repeatedly condemning the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, while practically ignoring the massacres carried out in her country. Her most recent project, Snow White , sparked boycotts and protests in the Arab world, Gadot received death threats, and her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was vandalized. In any case, it has already been confirmed that the actress will not be attending the Lido: her presence was never planned, perhaps precisely because of the potential uproar, according to Italian media. There is still no certainty about her colleague. Barbera replied: "I don't know."
The situation in Palestine is also more than eloquent: 62,000 lives lost since October 2023, almost half of them women and children, according to figures from the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health ; a health system on the brink of collapse, according to the World Health Organization ; at least 1,857 Palestinians have died since May while trying to obtain food, according to UN estimates. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, an international system supported by the United Nations that gauges the world's food situation, has just officially declared famine in Gaza City , something it had only declared on three other occasions since it began recording it in 2004. In Palestine, then, people die from hunger, from gunfire, from humanitarian aid blocked at the border, or from trying to report all of this as a journalist. This has led the festival's two parallel sections, Critics' Week and Day of Authors, also addressed by V4P's letter, to express their opinions sharply. "We consider the criminal action against the Palestinian people, with the aim of its total annihilation, to be increasingly intolerable," reads the statement issued by the former.
Hence, V4P is calling for greater efforts from the main event: that, during the opening ceremony, Palestinian artists be given space "to offer direct testimony"; and that the Mostra commit to "discontinuing relations with any organization that supports the Israeli government." "We don't have them," Barbera says. "You can't ask an art biennial to solve something that no government has shown itself capable of doing," she adds.
It's still possible, however, to expect the massacre in Gaza to hover over the entire festival. It affects, after all, the entire world. Venice will be all about movies and a celebrity gathering so unprecedented that The Hollywood Reporter magazine has described it as "frankly absurd." Almost every day, celebrities of the caliber of Adam Driver , Alicia Vikander, Jim Jarmush, Greta Gerwig, Jesse Plemons, Laura Dern, Idris Elba, Jason Momoa, and Jacob Elordi will be on screen and in front of microphones at press conferences. Who knows if they'll talk about Gaza? The truth is, it's impossible not to see what's happening, even from the stars.
EL PAÍS
