The Venice Film Festival kicked off this Wednesday with the war in Gaza as a backdrop and with protests marking the opening of its 82nd edition. At the inaugural press conference, American director Alexander Payne, president of the Official Selection jury, was repeatedly asked about his stance on the humanitarian crisis in Palestine but chose not to comment directly. “Frankly, I feel a little unprepared to answer that question,” said Payne, who stressed that he had come to Venice “to judge and talk about cinema” and added that his political views, he was sure, “are in agreement with many of yours.” He noted that questions about the festival’s official position should be directed to its director, Alberto Barbera.

The pressure on the festival had mounted in the days leading up to the opening, when more than 1,500 filmmakers and artists signed a letter organized by the Italian collective “Venice for Palestine,” demanding that the Mostra issue an explicit condemnation of what they called “Palestinian genocide” and the ethnic cleansing carried out by the Israeli government and army. Their demands also included the exclusion of artists such as Gal Gadot and Gerard Butler, stars of In the Hand of Dante, for their public support of Israel. Barbera rejected the idea of banning guests and defended the Biennale’s role as an “Italian cultural institution open to debate, one that does not exercise censorship over anyone.” At the same time, he expressed his sorrow over the tragedy in the Middle East: “We have not hesitated to clearly declare our deep pain over what is happening in Gaza and Palestine, over the deaths of civilians and especially children, so often described with the horrendous term ‘collateral damage’ of a war that no one has yet managed to bring to an end.”

Protests have already become visible in the lagoon city, with a demonstration scheduled to take place on Saturday at the Lido. Meanwhile, one of the films competing for the Golden Lion, The Voice of Hind Rajab, directly addresses the Gaza tragedy, recounting the story of the Palestinian girl killed after being trapped in a car during an Israeli bombing. Even the pre-opening gala was marked by the issue, with the attendance of Father Nandino Capovilla, recently denied entry by Israeli authorities, who denounced what he called a “plan of genocide.”

During the press conference, Payne also reflected on the role of cinema in society in an era defined by streaming and the decline of movie theaters. While admitting he often watches films “at home, at night, even lying on my stomach,” he firmly defended the power of the big screen as “the cathedral of cinema.” He lamented that “many magnificent films, important from both an artistic and political standpoint, do not occupy a larger space in public conversation” due to their limited theatrical releases. “Can a film really change society or culture? I don’t know,” he said. “But at least, when we make films that are relevant to their time, we leave a document.”

In this regard, he evoked the examples of Chaplin’s The Great Dictator and Lubitsch’s To Be or Not to Be, both satires of Nazism that neither prevented World War II nor the Holocaust, but serve as testimony that people “already knew what was happening.” “We have those films as evidence, and therefore we can try to learn from them,” he concluded.

Meanwhile, the jury presided over by Payne—which also includes Brazilian actress Fernanda Torres, Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof, Romanian filmmaker Cristian Mungiu, French director Stéphane Brizé, Italian filmmaker Maura Delpero and Chinese actress-producer Zhao Tao—is preparing to watch the 22 films in competition. Payne said he felt privileged to take on that task: “I get to watch films by incredible directors for the first time in a theater without knowing anything about them. This is heaven.”