Anti-Israel protesters rallied outside the Venice Film Festival’s main building on Wednesday, hours before the opening ceremony of this year’s star-packed festival.
Hand-drawn banners reading “Free Palestine” and “Stop the Genocide” were held up by some 20 individuals belonging to a regional left-wing Italian political collective, AFP reported.
The small protest was a prelude to a larger march slated to take place on Saturday at 5 p.m. local time, with hundreds of local organizations saying they will participate, according to Deadline Hollywood.
Protesters are expected to gather at the Santa Maria Elisabetta water bus stop on the Lido—the 6.8-mile-long barrier island in the Venetian Lagoon, where the festival is taking place on its 82nd anniversary—before marching toward the annual event’s red carpet, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
On Friday, the Italian film industry-led group Venice4Palestine (V4P) sent a letter to the festival’s organizers, urging them to take a public stand against the “ongoing genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing across Palestine,” Spanish daily newspaper El País reported.
V4P sent a second letter requesting the festival to pull the invitations extended to actors Gal Gadot and Gerard Butler due to their pro-Israel views, the report added.
However, outlet Ynet News reported that Gadot will not attend, with the Israeli star explaining that she was never scheduled to appear.
Alberto Barbera, the festival’s artistic director, told El País: “The Venice Biennale [Venice Film Festival] is a cultural institution, the most important in Italy, an open space for dialogue. Taking positions or making political statements is not our job. We welcome everyone; we have never censored an artist, nor will we do so now.
“No one can doubt the biennale’s attitude and the clarity of its position on these tragic issues, nor believe that we are insensitive to what is happening,” he continued.
Barbera added that the festival’s selection of The Voice of Hind Rajab, a Tunisian film written and directed by Kaouther Ben Hania, which depicts the story of a 5-year-old Palestinian girl killed by Israel, in the main competition is a testament to the biennale’s awareness of and standing by the “victims of this absurd war.”
According to Deadline Hollywood, actors Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara, and filmmakers Alfonso Cuarón and Jonathan Glazer, have been added as the movie’s executive producers after being impressed by a recent cut of the film.
Gadot and Butler feature in the film In the Hand of Dante, which will be screened at the festival on Sept. 3.
Of Dogs and Men, a docudrama by Israeli director Dani Rosenberg focusing on the aftermath of the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre in Israel’s south, featured in last year’s Orizzonti competition, which runs as a parallel section to the main competition for the Golden Lion top prize.
