Just days before the start of a new edition, the Venice International Film Festival has been called upon by an open letter signed by dozens of filmmakers and industry professionals, urging the Biennale and the festival’s parallel sections to adopt a clearer stance on the situation in Palestine.

The manifesto, launched under the collective Venice4Palestine (V4P), brings together renowned Italian auteurs such as Marco Bellocchio, Matteo Garrone, and Alice Rohrwacher, alongside international figures including Abel Ferrara, Ken Loach, French filmmaker Audrey Diwan, and Palestinian brothers Arab and Tarzan Nasser. In the letter, the signatories call on the organization to unequivocally condemn what they describe as genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.

The letter opens in a poetic yet forceful tone: “Stop the clocks, turn off the stars. The burden is too heavy to go on living as before. For almost two years now, images of absolute clarity have been reaching us from Gaza and the West Bank. No one will ever be able to say: ‘I didn’t know, I couldn’t imagine, I couldn’t believe.’”

The Biennale’s response

Facing public pressure, the Venice Biennale swiftly issued a statement defending the festival’s tradition as a space for debate and sensitivity toward the major issues confronting society today. “The Biennale and the festival have always been places of openness and discussion on the most pressing questions facing society and the world,” the organization noted. As an example, they highlighted the selection of The Voice of Hind Rajab, directed by Tunisia’s Kaouther Ben Hania, a competition entry that portrays the death of a five-year-old Palestinian girl following an attack in Gaza, using the real recordings of her phone calls.

The festival also pointed out that in 2023 it included in its lineup Of Dogs and Men, by Israeli director Dani Rosenberg, set in the days after the October 7 attack and focusing on the experience of a young girl returning to her kibbutz in the aftermath of Hamas’s assault.

With the festival set to open this Tuesday, the controversy underscores the growing tension between demands for explicit political statements and the defense of cinema as a space for diverse reflection.

“The Biennale is, as always, open to dialogue,” the organization concluded, hinting that the festival will continue its policy of showcasing works that bear witness to current conflicts without positioning itself as a direct political actor.