Venice Film Fest Faces Fiery Showdown: Filmmakers Demand They Stop Playing Dumb on Gaza—Will They Fold or Fight?
Added on August 23, 2025 inMovie News Cards
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So here we are — the Venice Film Festival, that glitzy cine-parade where movie magic meets glimmer and gondolas, but this year, the spotlight is sizzling with something far weightier than just who’s wearing what on the red carpet. As Mars blazes fiercely in Leo, demanding drama and spotlight, hundreds of filmmakers and artists from across Italy and beyond are handing the festival a cosmic reality check. They’ve penned a fiery open letter, urging Venice to ditch the usual glib glamour and take a thunderous stand against what they call genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza.
This passionate plea, forged under the banner Venice4Palestine, went straight to the Biennale di Venezia and the festival’s indie arms like Venice Days and International Critics’ Week. The signatories? Oh, just a little mix — Ken Loach, Toni Servillo (the face of the festival’s opener), the Rohrwacher sisters, Jasmine Trinca, Céline Sciamma… you get the idea, the crème de la cinematographic crop, all shouting from the rooftops: “The show must stop.” They insist the festival must morph from “a sad and empty showcase” into a “place of dialogue, active participation, and resistance.” Talk about flipping the script — and honestly, at this intensity of cosmic fire and earth-shaking truth, ignoring these calls isn’t just risky, it’s downright unthinkable.
So what’s more fitting this year than Mars in Leo’s demand for a stage — just one where humanity and justice take the lead role? Guess even the stars know it’s time for the show to pause and pay attention. LEARN MORE
Hundreds of Italian and international filmmakers, artists and cultural figures have signed an open letter calling on the Venice Film Festival to take a “clear and unambiguous stand” 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 film festival umbrella organization the Biennale di Venezia, as well as the festival’s independent sections Venice Days and International Critics’ Week.
In 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 “a sad and empty showcase” by instead providing “a place of dialogue, active participation, and resistance, as it has been in the past.”
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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 Céline 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 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.
“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,” the letter 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 letter continues, “the show must stop. We must interrupt the flow of indifference and open a path to awareness,” adding, “there is no cinema without humanity.”
The letter calls on the festival to host events highlighting Palestinian narratives and to create “a constant backdrop of conversations and initiatives” addressing “ethnic 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.”
In a statement in response to the letter, the Biennale said they and the Venice festival “have 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].” The statement noted that The Voice of Hind Rajab, 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.
The Biennale noted that last year’s Venice lineup featured Israeli director Dani Rosenberg’s film Of Dogs and Men, shot in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks.
“The Biennale is, as always, open to dialogue,” the statement said.
A separate group of Italian artists, the Artisti #NoBavaglio network, has called for a public “stop genocide” protest on August 30, on the first weekend of the festival.
The 82nd Venice international film festival runs Aug. 27 to Sept. 6.
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