Nobel Prize-winning writer Annie Ernaux, Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters and directors Isabel Coixet and Matteo Garrone are among signatories of an open letter issued on Friday calling for the Venice Film Festival “to take concrete action in support of Palestine.”
The open letter comes from the Venice4Palestine collective that took a similar initiative last year, albeit with more specific requests such as urging the event’s organizers to withdraw invitations to Gerard Butler and Gal Gadot over their previous support for Israel.
“One year after its first appeal, Venice4Palestine is once again calling on the Venice Biennale [the festival’s parent org], the Venice International Film Festival and professionals across the film, audiovisual and cultural sectors to take concrete action in support of Palestine,” the collective wrote in the open letter.
The Venice Film Festival had no immediate comment.
The Venice4Palestine letter also calls for the Palestinian flag to be flown throughout the festival to underline the presence in the event’s official selection of two Palestinian films: Ahmed Hassouna’s “Citizen Osama,” which portrays a photographer as he attempts to juggle his roles as father and a journalist while capturing the realities of war in Gaza, and Muayad Alayan’s “Conversation with the Sea,” about a 60-year-old Palestinian man named Kamal who becomes entangled in a tendentious web of Israeli bureaucracy.
