The 2025 Venice International Film Festival, typically a stage for cinematic celebration and glittering premieres, found itself transformed this year into a powerful arena for political expression and solidarity with Gaza. Against the backdrop of red carpets and flashing cameras, thousands of protesters, artists, and filmmakers converged to demand an end to what they called the genocide in Gaza, ensuring that the festival could not remain isolated from the world’s most urgent humanitarian crisis.
On Saturday, August 30, an estimated three to four thousand pro-Palestinian activists marched on the Lido, the Venetian barrier island that hosts the festival. According to reporting by The Tribune, the crowd was a vibrant mix of young and old, students, unionists, cultural figures, and activists from across Italy, France, the UK, and other parts of Europe. Waving Palestinian, Italian, and rainbow flags, and sporting watermelon pins—a symbol of Palestinian solidarity—they chanted “Stop the genocide!” and “Free Palestine!” in a cacophony of English, Italian, French, and Arabic. The mood, despite the gravity of the cause, was described as celebratory, with colored flares and music from trucks energizing the procession.
The demonstration was organized by Venice4Palestine, a coalition of Italian and international film professionals who have been vocal about the need for the festival to take a stand. Their open letter, signed by over 2,000 film industry figures—including Guillermo del Toro, Ken Loach, Céline Sciamma, and many renowned Italian filmmakers—urged the festival’s organizers to “condemn the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the ethnic cleansing across Palestine carried out by the Israeli government and army.” As Deadline reported, the letter warned against letting the festival become “a sad and empty showcase,” disconnected from the real world’s tragedies.
As the march approached the Palazzo del Cinema, where Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein was set to premiere, Italian police, backed by vans and riot gear, blocked the crowd about 1,000 feet from the red carpet. Unlike previous years when activists managed to get closer, authorities this time kept the demonstration at bay. Still, the protest’s message—delivered through banners, chants, and music—was impossible to ignore. The event disrupted local bus services and film junkets, but unfolded peacefully, with police making no move to disperse the crowd.
In a dramatic moment that captured global attention, artists Halsey and Avan Jogia took the protest directly to the heart of the festival. As the red carpet buzzed with anticipation, they unfurled a banner reading “Stop the Genocide in Gaza.” Their act, widely praised online as “brave” and “meaningful,” injected a rare note of urgency and substance into an environment often dominated by glamour. According to The Tribune, this visible display of solidarity on such a prestigious platform was a bold reminder that cultural events cannot turn their backs on the suffering of civilians.
Venice4Palestine’s protest was not confined to land. About 700 additional demonstrators sailed from Porto Marghera to Lido Beach, joining the marchers and expressing support for the Global Sumud Flotilla—a civilian fleet carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza. Organizers described the rally as “possibly the largest protest ever seen at a major film event,” and issued a statement declaring, “The Venice Film Festival must not remain an event isolated from reality, but rather become a space to denounce the genocide being carried out by Israel, the complicity of Western governments, and to offer concrete support to the Palestinian people.”
The statement continued with a litany of grievances: “In Gaza, hospitals, schools and refugee camps are being bombed; civilians are being deprived of food and water; journalists and doctors are being killed; humanitarian ships such as the Freedom Flotilla are being seized. At the same time, in the West Bank, apartheid and settler violence continue unabated. The permanent occupation of Gaza by the Israeli government marks an escalation that has gone beyond every limit of humanity and international law.” The group called for an immediate end to arms sales and Western complicity, demanding that cultural spaces like the Venice festival become “places of dialogue, active participation, and resistance.”
Festival leadership, for their part, maintained a delicate balance. Artistic director Alberto Barbera described Venice as “a cultural space, not political,” but did not shy away from expressing sorrow over the violence. “We have never hesitated to clearly declare our huge sadness and suffering vis-à-vis what is happening in Gaza and Palestine. The death of civilians and especially of children, who are victims, the collateral damage of a war which nobody has been able to terminate yet,” Barbera stated at a jury press conference, according to Deadline. He emphasized that the festival was “absolutely open to any kind of debate.” Jury president Alexander Payne added that while films document rather than change the world, the festival welcomed Palestinian narratives, pointing to the inclusion of The Voice of Hind Rajab in the main competition.
The Voice of Hind Rajab, directed by Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania, centers on the tragic killing of a five-year-old Palestinian girl, Hind Rajab, her family, and two paramedics by the Israeli Defense Forces in January 2024. The film, which features executive producers Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix, Rooney Mara, Alfonso Cuaron, and Jonathan Glazer, was cited as evidence of the festival’s willingness to engage with the Palestinian story. The incident that inspired the film—where Hind and her family, fleeing Gaza City, were killed after their vehicle was shelled and their calls for help went unanswered—sparked global outrage and protests, including at Columbia University, where students renamed Hamilton Hall as Hind’s Hall.
The festival’s openness to Palestinian stories stands in stark contrast to the risks faced by Palestinian journalists and filmmakers. As outlined by World Socialist Web Site, at least 197 journalists have been killed and 90 imprisoned during the conflict, with filmmakers such as Odeh Hathalin and Hamdan Ballal suffering violence and detention. The murder of photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, whose documentary was set to screen at Cannes, underscored the dangers of documenting the war. Despite these efforts to silence witnesses, images and videos from Gaza continue to circulate widely, fueling international outrage and mobilizing support for Palestinian victims.
This year’s Venice Film Festival, then, was not just about cinema—it became a microcosm of a world grappling with tragedy and the responsibilities of cultural institutions. The mass protests, open letters, and acts of solidarity on the red carpet sent a clear message: the global community, including its artists and storytellers, refuses to let art exist in a vacuum, indifferent to the suffering beyond its gates. As the festival continues, the question lingers—can any celebration of creativity truly ignore the call for justice echoing at its doorstep?
