Venice4Palestine – A few days before the opening of the Venice Mostra, one of the oldest and prestigious film festivals in the world, an open letter came to break the silence which, according to its signatories, surrounds the situation in Palestine in the field of culture and the visual arts. Entitled “FERMATE GLI OROLOGI, Spegnete le Stelle” (“Stop the clocks, turn off the stars”), this platform is not a petition for circumstance but a cry of conscience, a direct arrest addressed to the Biennale de Venice, the international movies of cinematographic art, the Giornate Degli Autri (day of the authors), at the International Critics’ Week, as well as to the whole of cinema, audiovisual, culture and information.
A direct arrest in the institution
“” The burden is too heavy to continue living as before. For almost two years, irrefutable images have reached us from the Gaza and West Band. We are witnessing, incredulous and helpless, to the torture of a genocide perpetrated live by the State of Israel in Palestine. No one can ever say: I didn’t know, I didn’t imagine, I didn’t believe it. We have seen everything. We see everything. Thus opens the text, which is based on a marked conviction with force: the accumulation of images from Gaza and the West Bank no longer leaves any room for doubt. What the world has seen is not an abstraction but a massacre broadcast live, which the authors describe as genocide committed by Israel against the Palestinian people. No one will be able to claim to ignore the extent of this tragedy, as the profusion of images and testimonies makes it impossible to forget or denial.
The text denounces this temptation, frequented in major cultural events, of ” look away », To suspend reality to preserve the flow of the show, as if the festivals could remain impermeable to the dramas of the world. The signatories reject this artificial cut: ” As if the world of cinema had nothing to do with the real world “, They write, in an ironic and indignant tone. Because it is precisely by the image that collective conscience was alerted: films, reports, amateur or professional videos, often made by colleagues or friends, have documented bombings, repression, the death of filmmakers and artists, collective punishments inflicted on Palestinian civilians. This commitment has a price: in the space of a few months, nearly 250 journalists, photographers and Palestinian operators were killed in the exercise of their profession.
Cinema as a resistance tool
The signatories remind the Venice Biennale its essential mission: to celebrate ” The power of art as a means of transformation, testimony, representation of humans and the development of critical consciousness ». This mission, they insist, is not purely aesthetic. It engages responsibility. Cinema, they write, is not an isolated entertainment but a peaceful weapon of resistance, capable of countering disinformation and indifference.
Faced with statements deemed too much ” lukewarm, waves or comfortable On the part of political, media or cultural institutions, the authors demand a clear and unambiguous word. Refusing to name violence, they say is already trivializing it. “” Language, words, images are not accessories “: They are the very tools of the resistance, as much as the cameras or the stories. And if this role is abandoned, they conclude, ” It should be admitted that being a filmmaker or journalist no longer makes any sense».
A call to action during the Mostra
From there is born the call to a collective, symbolic but powerful gesture, at the heart of the Mostra. The authors offer a suspension of the show, a break that breaks with the usual sequence of projections to recall that art cannot be separated from the blood shed in reality. They ask that the Biennale, the Mostra, the Giornate and the Critics Week publicly take up position and develop narrative spaces for Palestine, not as simple appendices but as an integral part of the event.
This requirement also targets the professional community as a whole. Producers, directors, actors, technicians, criticisms, journalists, programmers are called upon to imagine creative and collective actions during the festival, in order to express their disagreement with the pro-Israeli policies of many Western governments. These gestures should not be reduced to slogans, but deploy in ” The very language of creativity », By mobilizing the symbolic and artistic tools that make the singularity of cinema.
The signatories warn: if the festival chose indifference, it would only be ” A sad and empty showcase “, Insensitive to humanitarian tragedy. However, the role of cinema is, according to them, to embody a tool of testimony, resistance and critical conscience.
Among the hundreds of signatories, there are major figures of Italian cinema – Marco Bellocchio, Matteo Garrone, Mario Martone, Ferzan Ozpetek, Toni Servillo, Valeria Golino, Alba and Alice Rohrwacher, Fabrizio Gifuni – but also international artists like Céline Sciamma, Charles Dance, Margarethe von Trotta Loach or Roger Waters. There are also Tunisian filmmakers and actor Mehdi ben Attia, Ala Eddine Slim and Ahmed Hafiene, as well as the Palestinian directors Arab and Tarzan Nasser.
The letter also requires that discussion spaces and moments dedicated to Palestine be guaranteed during the festival, echoing the mobilization scheduled for August 30 and supported by the #Nobavaglio Artists network. She insisted that ” There is no cinema without humanity ».
The call remains open: anyone wishing to join the movement can do so by writing to (Email Protected).
A profession of faith
The letter concludes as a collective oath. “” We, artists and art lovers, we, professionals in the sector and cinema enthusiasts, we, organizers, trainers and journalists, we who are the beating heart of this Mostra, affirm that we will not be loose accomplices, that we will not remain silent, that we will not look away, that we will not give in to helplessness or the logics of power. The era in which we live imposes on us this responsibility. “Then comes the formula that sums up everything:” There is no cinema without humanity. Let us make sure that this monstra has a meaning, and that it does not become a sad and hollow showcase. Together, with courage, with integrity. Free Palestine ! »»
The reaction of the biennial
The official response of the Biennale was quick. In a press release relayed by Variety,, The institution claims to remain faithful to its tradition of confrontation with the most burning questions of contemporary society. This sensitivity, she says, is reflected above all in programming. It highlights this year the selection of The voice of Hind Rajab, an overwhelming film by Kaouther Ben Hania, presented in official competition. The feature film traces the story of Hind Rajab, a five-year-old girl killed in Gaza in 2024, whose death became the symbol of the inhumanity of the conflict. The choice of this film is highly symbolic: it shows that the Mostra does not ignore the Palestinian pain and that it inscribes, at the very heart of its selection, a story which directly challenges the consciousness of the public.
The festival also recalls that it had welcomed last year Dogs and men of the Israeli filmmaker Dani Rosenberg, who was interested in the consequences of the attack on Hamas on October 7. But he failed to recall that from the first day of the festival, more than 300 filmmakers, actors, writers and musicians had published a letter condemning the inclusion of this film and another Israeli title, Why warsaying that Israeli production houses were accomplices of “the oppression of the Palestinians”.
The biennial concludes its press release still by an opening in principle: ” The Biennale is, as always, open to dialogue ».
But does this posture be enough to meet the expectations of the signatories, who demand concrete, visible and assumed spaces of debate and memory?
The question remains whole, and the answer will undoubtedly depend on the ability of Mostra to accept that cinema is not only a mirror of its time, but also an actor in history being written.
A global debate
What is played out in Venice goes far beyond the festival. Since October 2023, other events have experienced similar arrests. In Locarno, in August 2024, artists’ collectives asked for the symbolic suspension of certain solidarity projections with Palestine. At the Toronto Festival, in September 2024, filmmakers demanded the holding of special sessions devoted to Palestinian films and the political context of their production. In San Sebastián, in October 2024, a petition signed by more than one hundred and twenty professionals called for an official tribute to the missing Palestinian filmmakers and in memory of civilian victims. So many gestures that reflect an increasing refusal of silence and recall that festivals, long perceived as bubbles away from the tensions of the world, are now summoned to assume a position.
The call of Venice4Palestine is therefore part of a global dynamic where neutrality tends to be assimilated to a tacit complicity. But by its magnitude and the symbolic weight of its signatories, this open letter gives the Venice Mostra a particular resonance. By placing the institution in the face of her responsibilities, she recalls that a large festival is not limited to celebrating cinema: he must also question his ability to give meaning to the world.
