From the request to exclude Gal Gadot and Gerard Butler at the red carpet with a Palestinian flag: the collective Venice4alestine divides the exhibition of cinema
In search of visibility, consent, easy applause. The collective actors and militant directors is in actual permanent service, from one appeal to another. And patience if often and willingly the aim is wrong. After the intensity of Elio Germano On ministerial funding revealed a boomerang for the good living room of cinema, on the eve of the 82nd international exhibition of film art that opens tonight with the screening of Grace Of Paolo Sorrentinoholds the request to revoke the invitation to Gal Gadot And Gerard Butleran actress and an actor guilty of being Israelis and supporting the action of Netanyahu. Venice4palestine (V4P), the abbreviation in which artists and associations joined, made it explicit in an appeal and in a subsequent open letter addressed to the top of the Venice Biennale.
Politics comes before art. Gaza comes before Grace. Curious that they are actors and directors to promote the reversal of priorities. The director of the exhibition Alberto Barbera He expressed his opposition to every form of censorship: «It is certainly not by prohibiting artists to participate in an event that resolves conflicts. There will be no invitation withdrawal ». Equally clear the replica of the President of the Biennale, Pietrangelo Buttafuoco: «I don’t close, I open. Even in time of war, intellectual and artists must meet and discuss ».
To confirm that the battage set up by V4P is propaganda, there is the fact that, before the letter reached the destination, the two actors had given up to accompany the exhibition In The Hand of Dantethe film on Divine comedy directed by Julian Schnabelthe visionary New York director of the Jewish family who will receive the Cartier Glory to the Filmaker 2025 prize on 3 September. shot in Italy, the film boasts a cast that, in addition to the two excommunicated actors, includes among others Al Pacino, Martin Scorsese, John Malkovich and ours Sabrina Impacciatore And Claudio Santamaria. They can parade, Gal Gadot And Gerard Butler No. Ex Miss Israel and ex Wonder Woman, Gadot He is guilty of having provided mandatory military service in the country where he has lived since 2005, becoming a fighting instructor and then that he has posed for a photo service of the army entitled “the sexiest soldiers in the world”. It does not matter that he has a grandfather who survived Auschwitz and that in recent days he joined the families of the hostages in the hands of Hamas to ask for their release in order to accelerate the negotiations. 55 -year -old Scottish, who grew up in a Catholic family and protagonist of action films, Butler has promoted with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Robert De Niro And Larry King Molding funds in favor of the Israeli army that is occupying the Gaza strip. Who knows how it would go if De Niro He wanted to parade to Lido. The democrats signatories of the appeal, paradoxically supported also by the network of artists #Nobavaglio, want to bar the Lido a Gadot And Butler. Of course, it is not exactly as a sarcastic post on X states: “No propal boycott of the Italian actors will ever be able to beat that of the public towards their films”. But the search for consent and applause from the media removes many contradictions and perhaps aspires to that visibility that their art does not always guarantee.
Monday on Sheet, Pupi Avati He reconstructed the rebirth of the Anac (National Association of Cinematic Authors) by his par, deluding us, as the title recited, which “in the end could more the cinema of politics”. Unfortunately, Venice4palestine’s activism quickly denied the illusion. The signatories of the appeal – among which Kean Loach, Marco Bellocchio, Matteo Garrone, Mario Martone, Gabriele Muccino, Valeria Golino, Jasmine Trinca, Laura Morante, Sunrise And Alice Rohrwacher, Beppe And Toni Servillo, Serena Dandini, Fiorella Mannoia And Roger Waters (up to 1,500 adhesions) -they have asked the Biennale “to expose itself with clear actions and positions and who undertakes to stop partnerships with any organization that supports the Israeli government, directly or indirectly”. Already in July, in view of possible disputes, the significant participation in the competition of The Voice of Hind Rajab of the director Kaouther Ben Haniafilm about the girl who, trapped in a car in the midst of relatives killed during the invasion of the Israeli army of Gaza of January 2024, asks for help, in vain, to the rescuers. Now V4P wants his delegation to parade on the red carpet with the Palestinian flag and announces an event at Lido for Saturday.
“The Venice Biennale and the Film Festival have always been in their history open and sensitive places of comparison to all the most urgent issues of society and the world”, have replied from the Venetian institution. It is not enough. Actors and directors claim the “genocide” sentence and the withdrawal of invitations. Just as happened a few weeks ago a Valery Gergievthe conductor in the smell of Putinism, first invited to direct a concert at the Royal Palace of Caserta and then downloaded to the Furor of Dem protests. Or as happened these days a Woody Allenwho fell under the arrows of the Ukrainian government for praising Russian cinema during the Moscow International Week: «I firmly believe that Putin He is wrong, but art must be kept out, “the American filmmaker rejected the accusations.
When the ideology is placed on art or confuses belonging to a people with acritical adhesion to its government, the effects can be nefarious. “What does it have to do with Netanyahu With the ban on hosting an Israeli artist? Then you shouldn’t invite any Iranian for Khameneior no Chinese artist for tensions between Beijing and Taiwan, “he observed Andrée Ruth Shammahdirector and director of the Franco Parenti Theater in Milan, manifesting his bitterness for the presence of many friends in the censors’ ranks. From the stage of the David di Donatello, before triggering the counterproductive controversy over cinema funding Elio Germano He said that “a Palestinian has the same dignity as an Israeli.” Today it must be said that the opposite is also worth.
