Venice Film Festival Opens With Gaza on Screen — and a Press Conference It Tried to Cancel

The 83rd Venice International Film Festival opened Wednesday on the Lido with Danny Boyle’s “Ink,” a drama about Rupert Murdoch’s 1969 takeover of British tabloid The Sun, and a lifetime achievement award for George Clooney. Artistic director Alberto Barbera called the 11-day program, drawn from a record 4,500 submissions, the festival’s most political edition yet, with selections touching Gaza, Russia’s war in Ukraine, the CIA-backed coup in Pinochet’s Chile and ICE raids in Minneapolis [1]. Days before the opening, roughly 200 artists and filmmakers — including Nobel laureate Annie Ernaux and Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters — signed a Venice4Palestine open letter urging the festival and the Venice Biennale to take “concrete action in support of Palestine” [2].

That pressure collided with festival logistics this week when organizers abruptly scrapped the festival’s traditional opening jury press conference, initially citing “scheduling conflicts” among jury members [3]. After journalists and observers accused organizers of trying to shield the panel — led by jury president Maggie Gyllenhaal — from being pressed on Gaza, Venice reversed course and confirmed the press conference would go ahead as scheduled [4]. Barbera separately pushed back on claims the lineup snubbed Israeli filmmakers, and the program includes “NAZA,” a documentary from “No Other Land” filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor examining Israeli military killings of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, alongside films on Ukraine and Musk [1, 5].

Why It Sucks:

Pro-Palestinian Filmmakers and Activists

• The letter’s demands went unmet. Roughly 200 signatories including Ernaux and Waters asked Venice to take institutional action for Palestine, but the festival opened with red carpets, a Murdoch biopic, and a Clooney tribute rather than any concrete policy shift [2].
• One documentary isn’t systemic change. Activists argue that programming “NAZA” alongside dozens of unrelated premieres lets Venice claim political relevance without using its institutional weight — like flying the Palestinian flag festival-wide, as the letter requested — to actually pressure anyone [2, 5].
• The press conference scare confirmed their fear. Organizers’ attempt to cancel jury Q&A just as political scrutiny peaked reads to activists as proof the festival wants Gaza on screen but not in the room where jurors could be asked to answer for it [3, 4].

Festival Organizers (Alberto Barbera and the Venice Biennale)

• Neutral “space for discussion” under siege. Barbera insists Venice is a forum open to everybody rather than an advocacy platform, but that stance now draws fire from both the Venice4Palestine coalition and critics who accuse the fest of snubbing Israeli films [1, 2].
• Scheduling excuse blew up in their face. What organizers framed as an ordinary logistics conflict around the jury press conference was read by journalists as political cowardice, forcing an embarrassing reversal days before the festival even opened [3, 4].
• Every lineup choice now reads as a statement. With four Gaza-related selections, an Elon Musk documentary and an ICE-raids film in the same program, Barbera can’t select contemporary stories without being accused of picking a side no matter what he programs [1, 5].

Journalists Covering the Festival

• Access nearly vanished overnight. Reporters who rely on the jury presser to question the festival’s most powerful voices watched organizers try to cancel it entirely, only restoring it after public pushback [3, 4].
• “Scheduling conflict” strained credulity. The cancellation arrived precisely when Gaza-related questions were expected to dominate the room, making the official explanation hard for the press corps to take at face value [3, 4].
• Politics now dominates the beat regardless. Between four Gaza films, an Elon Musk documentary and an opening film about Rupert Murdoch’s own media empire, journalists must navigate an unusually charged festival while PR tries to manage the narrative around it [1, 5].

Sources & Citations:

[1] TimesLIVE (AP): Venice Film Festival turns to politics as Hollywood retreats
[2] Deadline: Venice: Palestine-Israel Conflict Set To Be Hot Button Topic As Open Letter Calls For Festival To Take Concrete Action In Support Of Palestine
[3] Deadline: Venice Film Festival Scraps Jury Press Conference
[4] Deadline: Venice Film Festival Changes Course & Reinstates Jury Press Conference
[5] WTOP (AP): The Venice Film Festival opens with a Rupert Murdoch film, George Clooney and plenty of geopolitics