Gaza Names Shroud Unfurled at Locarno Film Festival in Peaceful Protest

Roughly 100 demonstrators gathered on Locarno's Piazza Grande on 8 August and unfurled a shroud bearing the names of 60,000 people killed in Gaza since the war began two and a half years ago, in a peaceful protest timed ahead of an evening screening (Variety).

The demonstration was arranged in advance with festival organisers and local police. Its location and time on the Piazza Grande — the 8,000-seat open-air venue that is Locarno's signature space — were set so as not to block festivalgoers, though it took place ahead of a screening of Miguel Ángel Jiménez's The Birthday Party, starring Willem Dafoe, Vic Carmen Sonne and Emma Suárez (Screen Daily; Variety).

Festival organisers said they had been informed of the plan and respected the right to free expression, provided demonstrations stayed safe and non-disruptive (Variety). An hour after the protest concluded, more than 8,000 attendees filled the Piazza Grande for a sold-out screening of Olivia Wilde's The Invite (Variety).

Three Swiss groups organised the action. One of the organisers, Dr. Michele Ghielmini of Swiss Healthcare Workers Against Genocide, told Variety the protestors were not aligned with any political party and were not trying to disrupt the festival. He said Locarno drew attendees from German-speaking Switzerland, a region he described as less sensitive to the Swiss government's stance on Gaza than the Italian- and French-speaking parts of the country (Variety).

The shroud itself has travelled. Before Locarno, it had been displayed in Amsterdam and in front of the Swiss Parliament in Bern (Variety).

According to leaflets the protestors handed out, they are calling on the Swiss government to pressure Israel to open Gaza's borders to relief organisations and the media, and to allow injured civilians from Gaza to receive medical treatment in Switzerland. They also demand that Switzerland impose sanctions if Israel continues to violate the Geneva Conventions — the international treaties setting rules for humanitarian conduct in armed conflict (Variety).

This year's Locarno programme included competition films from Palestinian filmmakers: Mohanad Yaqubi's documentary Revolutionaries Never Die and Asmohan Bkerat's Concrete Land (Variety).

The Locarno protest follows a pattern of festival demonstrations over Gaza and Palestine's Occupied Territories. In August 2025, thousands of pro-Palestinian activists marched on the Venice International Film Festival in what the Hollywood Reporter described as a raucous but peaceful protest (Hollywood Reporter). Berlin's film festival earlier in 2026 saw its own political controversy over the same issue (Variety).

Each of these demonstrations has taken a different shape — Venice brought thousands into the streets; Locarno's was smaller, pre-arranged with the host, and carried the weight of 60,000 names laid across the piazza's cobblestones.