Roger Waters, Annie Ernaux, and Hundreds of Artists Urge Venice Film Festival to Take Action on Palestine
Roger Waters, Annie Ernaux, and Guy Pearce are among hundreds of artists who have signed an open letter calling on the Venice Biennale and the Venice Film Festival to take "concrete action" against what they describe as a genocide against the Palestinian people (The Hollywood Reporter).
The appeal, organised under the banner Venice4Palestine, asks the festival to fly the Palestinian flag for the entire duration of the event alongside all other flags representing films in the official selection. It also calls on Venice to host a September 8 panel on the Lido titled "Yet Gaza Continues to Burn," which will feature Venice4Palestine representatives (The Hollywood Reporter).
The signatories span the international film community. Nobel Prize-winning French writer Annie Ernaux and Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters lend star wattage; the directors' roster includes Isabel Coixet, Céline Sciamma, Matteo Garrone, British film-maker Ken Loach, Palestinian directors Arab and Tarzan Nasser, and French-Israeli director Eyan Sivan (The Hollywood Reporter; Anadolu Agency via Facebook).
This is the second such letter in two years. A similar appeal went to Venice a year earlier, and the letter's authors say it produced no tangible results for Gaza (The Hollywood Reporter). The new letter argues that a "false ceasefire" has not halted Israeli atrocities, which it says have expanded toward the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon, and Iran (The Hollywood Reporter).
Deadline reports that the Palestine-Israel conflict is set to be a hot-button topic at this year's festival, with the open letter putting pressure on Venice's leadership to respond (Deadline).
The Venice4Palestine collective maintains a website at venice4palestine.org, where the open letter — titled "Open Letter to the Members of the European Film Academy" — is hosted and visitors are invited to add their signatures (venice4palestine.org).
The Venice Film Festival, held annually on the Lido island in Venice, is one of the world's oldest and most prestigious film festivals, run as part of the broader Venice Biennale cultural organisation. The festival's official selections draw global media attention each September, making it a high-profile platform for political as well as artistic statements.
Whether the festival will accede to any of the letter's demands has not been addressed publicly by Venice's leadership. The 2026 edition's programme and flag protocol remain as announced.
