Nobel Prize-winning writer Annie Ernaux, Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters and directors Isabel Coixet and Matteo Garrone are among signatories of an open letter issued on Friday calling for the Venice Film Festival “to take concrete action in support of Palestine.” The open letter comes from the Venice4Palestine collective that took a similar initiative last year, albeit with more specific requests such as urging the event’s organizers to withdraw invitations to Gerard Butler and Gal Gadot over their previous support for Israel. The Venice Film Festival had no immediate comment. The Venice4Palestine letter also calls for the Palestinian flag to be flown throughout the festival to underline the presence in the event’s official selection of two Palestinian films: Ahmed Hassouna’s “Citizen Osama,” which portrays a photographer as he attempts to juggle his roles as father and a journalist while capturing the realities of war in Gaza, and Muayad Alayan’s “Conversation with the Sea,” about a 60-year-old Palestinian man named Kamal who becomes entangled in a tendentious web of Israeli bureaucracy.
Venice has never shied away from political controversy, or from films that put the plight of Palestinians on screen. Kaouther Ben Hania’s Gaza-set “The Voice of Hind Rajab” won the Silver Lion last year after eliciting a 22-minute standing ovation, which stands as the fest’s longest. Expect it to spark up some political heat.
The doc, which was shot at night on the rooftops of Tel Aviv, shows “in detail the systems behind Israel’s calculated mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza,” according to its official synopsis. Signatories of the Venice4Palestine letter also include Nan Goldin, Paul Laverty, Teona Strugar Mitevska, Saleh Bakri and Céline Sciamma as well as Italy’s Anna Foglietta, Fabrizio Gifuni, Greta Scarano, Jasmine Trinca and Luigi Lo Cascio. The collective also announced the panel “And Yet Gaza Continues to Burn – What Is the Point of Seeing if We Do Not Act?,” which will take place under the aegis of the fest’s separately run section Giornate degli Autori, also known as Venice Days.
The panel on Sept. 8 will gather international law experts as well as representatives of the Global Sumud Flotilla group, which has tried to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza by sea. The 83rd Venice Film Festival runs from Sept. 2 to 12.
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