The Venice Film Festival is weighing scrapping its traditional opening jury press conference on the Lido.
The festival, which kicks off Sept. 2 with the world premiere of Danny Boyle’s “Ink,” told Variety that the presser will “probably not” take place, citing a scheduling conflict, and said a welcome cocktail hour with the press will be organized instead. If the press conference is axed, it could raise eyebrows given the political pressure building around Venice this year.
Last year’s Venice opening jury press conference was dominated by questions about Gaza, with then-jury president Alexander Payne saying he felt “unprepared” to answer a question about the conflict and was blamed for seemingly dodging it.
The news comes just days after Nobel Prize-winning author Annie Ernaux, Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters and filmmakers including Matteo Garrone and Isabel Coixet signed an open letter urging the Venice Biennale and film festival to take “concrete action in support of Palestine.” The letter was organized by the Venice4Palestine collective, which similarly targeted the festival last year and had urged the event’s organizers to withdraw invitations to Gerard Butler and Gal Gadot over their previous support for Israel.
Venice artistic director Alberto Barbera has described this year’s lineup as Venice’s “most political” in recent years, with films tackling war, Palestine, immigration, climate change and shrinking political freedoms. Earlier this week, the fest added “NAZA,” a new hot-button documentary from “No Other Land” directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, to the Venice competition lineup.
The festival’s main competition jury is headed by Maggie Gyllenhaal and includes Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania, whose acclaimed “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” about the killing of a five-year-old Palestinian girl in Gaza, premiered at Venice last year and won the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize. Other jurors are Daniel Blumberg, Francesco Casetti, Xavier Giannoli, Shahrbanoo Sadat and Johnnie To.
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