Film festival executives used to spend their time programming movies, inviting guests, and planning events, but now they must cope with demands to politicize their festivals, specifically demands for the festivals to focus on Gaza and Israel.
This has been the case more than ever in the run-up to the 83rd Venice International Film Festival, which opens on Wednesday.
Festivals generally open with a press conference in which the jurors in the main competition answer questions, but this led to controversy last year at Venice, when director Alexander Payne, who headed the jury, said he was not prepared to speak about Gaza, and this year at the Berlin International Film Festival, when jury president Wim Wenders declined to speak on the issue and said filmmakers should steer clear of politics.
Festival's opening press conference replaced with juror panel
Last week, the organizers of Venice announced that they were canceling the opening press conference. Deadline reported that the festival staff denied that this was out of a desire to avoid questions about the Israel-Hamas conflict, claiming it was due to scheduling conflicts.
But on Sunday, Venice made an about-face and said that it would hold a panel featuring the jurors on Wednesday.
This year, the international jury is headed by actress/director Maggie Gyllenhaal.
The other jury members are Tunisian director and screenwriter Kaouther Ben Hania (who made the film The Voice of Hind Rajab, about a Palestinian girl in Gaza killed by Israeli fire, which won the Grand Jury Prize at Venice last year), English composer and artist Daniel Blumberg, Italian professor Francesco Casetti, French director and screenwriter Xavier Giannoli, Afghan director and screenwriter Shahrbanoo Sadat, and the Hong Kong director and producer Johnnie To.
The jury will have its work cut out for pacifying activists, especially after a letter was published last weekend by the Venice4Palestine collective, signed by notable figures such as anti-Israel musician Roger Waters, calling on the Venice International Film Festival, its sponsor, the Venice Biennale, and the rest of the film industry to condemn Israel. Other signatories include Nobel Prize-winning author Annie Ernaux and directors Matteo Garrone and Céline Sciamma.
Venice4Palestine repeats previous anti-Israel demands
Last year, the group made a similar demand and held demonstrations against Israeli policy.
“One year after its first appeal, Venice4Palestine is once again calling on the Venice Biennale, the Venice International Film Festival and professionals across the film, audiovisual and cultural sectors to take concrete action in support of Palestine,” the group wrote in its latest letter.
Among the “concrete action” it calls for is “greater transparency throughout the film industry and the suspension of agreements with organizations and institutions linked to the Israeli government, the introduction of safeguards for professionals who choose to dissociate themselves from such ties.”
This line is worrisome to Israeli filmmakers, virtually all of whom take some funding from film funds that receive government money. These include left-wing art house favorites such as Nadav Lapid and Amos Gitai, whose latest film, The Road to Jericho, will be shown at Venice. This amounts to a veiled call to boycott all Israeli filmmakers.
The Venice4Palestine letter also called for the Palestinian flag to be flown throughout the festival to herald the inclusion of two Palestinian films in the festival: Ahmed Hassouna’s Citizen Osama and Muayad Alayan’s Conversation with the Sea.
Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, two Israelis who co-directed the Oscar-winning No Other Land, have a new documentary at Venice this year, Naza, about civilian deaths in Gaza during the war.
Venice4Palestine has also announced that it will hold a panel, “And Yet Gaza Continues to Burn – What Is the Point of Seeing If We Do Not Act?” as part of the Giornate degli Autori.
While it defines itself as a pro-Palestinian group, Venice4Palestine makes no mention of Hamas in its letter, although Hamas has been widely accused of executing and torturing Palestinians who oppose it.