The Venice Film Festival responds to the pro-Palestine open letter

A large group of mainly Italian film industry professionals, including the authors Marco Bellocchio, Matteo Garrone and Alice Rohrwacher, launched an appeal for the Venice Film Festival to adopt a more active pro-Palestinian position.

The group, gathered under the banner of V4P (Venice4palestine), published an open open letter exhorting the parental organization of the festival, the Venice Biennale on Saturday and its independent parallel sections Giornate Degli (Days de Venice) and the weekend of international criticisms, “to be more courageous and clear in the conviction of the genosion in progress in Gaza and Pale government and army. “The Venice Film Festival will start on Tuesday.

“Stop the clocks, turn off the stars,” reads the opening paragraph of the letter.

“The burden is too much to continue living as before. For almost two years now, images of undoubted clarity have reached us from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Incidentally and helpless, we continue to attend the torment of a genocide carried out live by the State of Israel in Palestine.

The non -Italian signatories of the open letter include Abel Ferrara, Ken Loach, “The Happening”, winner of a French golden lion, Director Audrey Diwan and the duo of Palestinian director Arab Nasser and Tarzan Nasser, who won this year the best director of Cannes for their latest film “Once Upon a Time in Gaza”.

The biennial quickly responded. “The Biennale and the Festival have always been, throughout their history, places of discussion open and sensitivity to all the most urgent problems to which the company and the world have declared,” the group said in a statement.

“The proof of this is, above all, the works which are presented [at the festival]”Added the press release, quoting the case of the film” The Voice of Hind Rajab “by Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania, who is in competition this year. This hot button political drama concerns the murder of a 5 -year -old Palestinian girl who was blocked in a car that had been attacked by Israeli Gaza forces and later discovered. seemed visibly moved by noting that Ben Hania used the real audio strips of telephone calls between the girl and her mother.

In its statement, the Biennale also noted that last year’s Venice range featured the film by Israeli director Dani Rosenberg “Of Dogs and Men” in the wake of the Hamas attack on October 7. The film follows a 16 -year -old named Dar who returns to his Kibbutz to look for his dog who was lost during terrorism.

“The Biennale is, as always, open to dialogue,” concluded the press release.