\n<\/p>\n
\n\tHundreds of Italian and international filmmakers, artists and cultural figures have signed an open letter calling on the Venice Film Festival to take a \u201cclear and unambiguous stand\u201d against what they describe as genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe appeal, organized under the banner of Venice4Palestine (V4P), was sent on Friday to the Venice film festival umbrella organization the Biennale di Venezia, as well as the festival\u2019s independent sections Venice Days and International Critics\u2019 Week.<\/p>\n
\n\tIn the letter, the group accuses the Israeli government and military of carrying out genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing across Palestine, and urges the festival to avoid becoming \u201ca sad and empty showcase\u201d by instead providing \u201ca place of dialogue, active participation, and resistance, as it has been in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tSignatories include British filmmaker Ken Loach, Italian actor Toni Servillo \u2014\u00a0star of 2025 Venice opener, La Grazia<\/em> from Paolo Sorrentino, Italian actress and director siblings Alba and Alice Rohrwacher, actress Jasmine Trinca, French directors C\u00e9line 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<\/em>.<\/p>\n \n\tThe group references the deaths of nearly 250 Palestinian media workers since the start of the conflict and frames artistic institutions as responsible for fostering awareness and resistance. <\/p>\n \n\t\u201cAs the spotlight turns on the Venice Film Festival, we\u2019re in danger of going through yet another major event that remains indifferent to this human, civil, and political tragedy,\u201d the letter reads. \u201c\u2018The show must go on,\u2019 we are told, as we\u2019re urged to look away \u2014 as if the \u2018film world\u2019 had nothing to do with the \u2018real world.’\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tFor once, the letter continues, \u201cthe show must stop. We must interrupt the flow of indifference and open a path to awareness,\u201d adding, \u201cthere is no cinema without humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe letter calls on the festival to host events highlighting Palestinian narratives and to create \u201ca constant backdrop of conversations and initiatives\u201d addressing \u201cethnic cleansing, apartheid, illegal occupation of Palestinian territories, colonialism and all the other crimes against humanity committed by Israel for decades, not just since October 7.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tIn a statement in response to the letter, the Biennale said they and the Venice festival \u201chave always been, throughout their history, places of open discussion and sensitivity to all the most pressing issues facing society and the world. The evidence of this is, first and foremost, the works that are being presented [at the festival].\u201d The statement noted that The Voice of Hind Rajab<\/em>, a real-life drama from Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania, about the killing of a 5-year-old Palestinian girl by Israeli forces in Gaza in 2024, will be screening in competition at Venice this year. <\/p>\n \n\tThe Biennale noted that last year\u2019s Venice lineup featured Israeli director Dani Rosenberg\u2019s film Of Dogs and Men<\/em>, shot in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThe Biennale is, as always, open to dialogue,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n \n\tA separate group of Italian artists, the Artisti #NoBavaglio network, has called for a public \u201cstop genocide\u201d protest on August 30, on the first weekend of the festival.<\/p>\n \n\tThe 82nd Venice international film festival runs Aug. 27 to Sept. 6.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hundreds of Italian and international filmmakers, artists and cultural figures have signed an open letter calling on the Venice Film Festival to take a \u201cclear and unambiguous stand\u201d against what they describe as genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza. The appeal, organized under the banner of Venice4Palestine (V4P), was sent on Friday to the Venice<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17524,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[4856,1233,4543,3866,791,1763,7105],"class_list":{"0":"post-17523","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-filmmakers","9":"tag-gaza","10":"tag-letter","11":"tag-open","12":"tag-stand","13":"tag-urge","14":"tag-venice"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}