DUBAI: Hundreds of filmmakers and cultural figures have rallied behind an open letter demanding the Venice Film Festival break its silence on Gaza, calling on it to take a “clear and unambiguous stand” against what they denounce as genocide and ethnic cleansing.
The appeal, organized under the banner of Venice4Palestine, was sent to the Venice film festival umbrella organization, the Biennale di Venezia, on Friday.
In the letter, the group accuses the Israeli government and military of carrying out genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing across Palestine. It urges the festival to avoid becoming “a sad and empty showcase” by providing instead “a place of dialogue, active participation and resistance, as it has been in the past.”
Signatories include British filmmaker Ken Loach, Italian actor Toni Servillo (star of 2025 Venice opener, “La Grazia” from Paolo Sorrentino), Italian actress and director siblings Alba and Alice Rohrwacher, actress Jasmine Trinca, French directors Celine Sciamma and Audrey Diwan, British actor Charles Dance, and Palestinian directorial duo Arab Nasser and Tarzan Nasser, who won best director in Cannes Un Certain Regard this year for their latest film, “Once Upon A Time In Gaza.”
The letter references the deaths of nearly 250 Palestinian media workers since the start of the conflict and stresses that cultural institutions cannot remain detached.
“As the spotlight turns on the Venice Film Festival, we’re in danger of going through yet another major event that remains indifferent to this human, civil, and political tragedy,” it reads. “‘The show must go on,’ we are told, as we’re urged to look away — as if the ‘film world’ had nothing to do with the ‘real world.’
“For once, the show must stop. We must interrupt the flow of indifference and open a path to awareness.” It concludes: “There is no cinema without humanity.”
In response, the Biennale said the festival “has always been, throughout their history, places of open discussion and sensitivity to all the most pressing issues facing society and the world.”
It pointed to works in the lineup such as “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania’s competition entry about the killing of a 5-year-old Palestinian girl in Gaza in 2024.
