The Venice Film Festival will open with Paolo Sorrentino's Grace and host a large array of A-list celebrities on the Lido until September 6. A Venice for Palestine movement of about 1,500 Italian and international film figures sent letters urging the festival to officially condemn alleged genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing across Palestine. The group asked for withdrawal of invitations to Gal Gadot and Gerard Butler and proposed a delegation march with the Palestinian flag in place of those performers. The festival replied that debate is welcome and bans will not be sanctioned. Protests have intensified and a pro-Palestinian demonstration is scheduled for August 30.
Starting Wednesday, some of the luckiest, most privileged, and most pampered people on the planet will gather in Venice. Even the word that defines them underlines their distance from Earth: stars. The 82nd edition of the world's oldest film festival kicks off with Paolo Sorrentino's Grace. George Clooney, Cate Blanchett, Guillermo del Toro, Kathryn Bigelow, Emma Stone, Oscar Isaac, Sofia Coppola, Al Pacino, Jude Law and Julia Roberts, among many others, will follow.
In place of the performers, who are participating in Julian Schnabel's out-of-competition film In the Hand of Dante, the text suggests that a delegation should march with the Palestinian flag. To which the festival responded that debate is always welcome, but it would never sanction a ban. Instead of being silenced, the protests have grown stronger. The Mostra hasn't even started and it's already experiencing its first major controversy. It's likely to drag on and extend throughout the entire event:
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