DUBAI: Venice Film Festival chief Alberto Barbera spoke to Deadline magazine at the midway point of the famed Italian event and touched on the ongoing Israeli military campaign in Gaza and related protests in Venice.
Thousands of anti-war protesters attended a march on Saturday, with Barbera telling Deadline the protesters did not wish to enter the festival grounds.
“They didn’t want to enter. I think around 30 people tried. I asked the organizers of the protest whether they wanted to send a delegation to the red carpet and they said they weren’t interested in doing that and that they didn’t want to interfere with the festival.”
When pushed by Deadline, whose journalist Andreas Wiseman said: “I thought they had said they wanted to march to the festival center,” Barbera countered with: “No, I don’t think so. I offered them a place on the carpet and they said no.”
Plans for the protest gained momentum after Venice4Palestine, an organization of Italian and international film professionals, issued an open letter last weekend calling on the festival to condemn the suffering caused by Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
In Deadline’s interview, published on Sunday, Barbera said: “We made an initial statement and then at the pre-opening of the festival the president of the Biennale made a very strong statement against the war in Gaza. There was a priest alongside him who had been refused entry to Israel in recent weeks and who has been very supportive of Palestine.”
When asked if he would make a personal statement, Barbera said: “I would do but the Biennale doesn’t make political statements. That’s the reason I haven’t so far.”
When it comes to the roster of international films on the festival’s screening agenda, Barbera said: “There are very few Palestinian films each year, this year even less perhaps, because of the war. I saw only one film that could have had the profile of a Competition film. It wasn’t quite good enough for us, from my point of view, so we declined and I think the film will screen at another festival.”











