The Gaza humanitarian crisis loomed large at the Venice Film Festival closing ceremony as multiple winners called for an end to the Israeli military campaign in the Palestinian territory.
The situation there has been a hot button topic throughout the 82nd edition of the festival, which unfolded just six weeks shy of the second anniversary of the Hamas terror attacks on Southern Israel on October 7 2023, which killed 1,200 people and resulted in the taking of 251 hostages.
At least 61,000 people living in the Gaza Strip have died in Israel’s subsequent military campaign aimed at wiping out Hamas and recovering the hostages, while aid agencies have warned of a looming “a man-made” famine, with at least 132,000 children under five-years-old expected to suffer from acute malnutrition.
Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania was the most outspoken as she received the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize for The Voice of Hind Rajab.
The film about the killing of six-year-old Hind Rajab, who was in a car with family members which was fired on by Israeli forces at they tried to flee Gaza City in early 2024, rocked the festival earlier in the week, receiving a record-breaking 23 minutes and 40 second ovations.
“I dedicate this award to the Palestinian Red Crescent and to all those who have risked everything to save lives in Gaza. They are real heroes. The voice of Hind is the voice of Gaza itself, a cry for rescue the entire world could hear, yet no one answered,” said Ben Hania.
“Her voice will continue to echo until accountability is real until justice is served. We all believe in the force of cinema. It’s what gathers us here tonight and what gives us the courage to tell stories that might otherwise be buried. Cinema cannot bring Hind back. Nor can it erase the atrocity committed against her. Nothing can ever restore what was taken,” she continued.
“But cinema can preserve her voice, make it resonate across borders, because her story is not hers alone. It is tragically the story of an entire people enduring genocide inflicted by a criminal Israeli regime that acts with impunity,” she added.
Ben Hania raised the plight of Hind Rajab’s mother Wissam Hamada and brother Eiyad, who remain in Gaza.
“This story is not only about memory it’s about urgency. Their lives remain in danger, as do the lives of countless mothers, fathers and children who wake up every day under the same sky of fear, hunger and bombardment. I urge the leaders of the world to save them. Their survival is not a matter of charity. It is a matter of justice, of humanity, of the minimum that the world owes to them. I also call for an end of this unbearable situation. Enough is enough.”
A number of other winners made similar appeals across the night including Italy’s Toni Servillo, who won Best Actor for his performance in La Grazia; Silent Friend co-star Luna Wedler, who won the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best New Young Actor, and Moroccan director Maryam Touzani who won the Audience Award for Calle Malaga.
“The joy I feel is profound but so is the pain I feel as I receive this award today,” said Touzani. “I feel pain because like many others I cannot forget the horror inflicted with such impunity and every second on the people of Gaza and the people of Palestine.”
“As a mother today, I consider myself even more fortunate to simply be able to look at my child as I speak,” continued the director, whose son was in the auditorium.
“For how many mothers have been made childless, how many children have been motherless, fatherless, have lost everything. How many more until this horror is brought to an end. Yes, we wipe our tears and keep going, but we refuse to lose our humanity. I must say I am proud and honored to be part of a festival that has been so engaged.”
IIn the first part of the ceremony Indian director Anuparna Roy, winner of the Best Director in the Orizzonti sidebar for Songs Of Forgotten Trees, also stood up for Palestine.
“Every child deserves peace, freedom, liberation and Palestinians are no exception… it’s a responsibility at the moment to stand by Palestine…. “I might upset my country but it doesn’t matter to me anymore,” she said.
India opposed the partition of Palestine in 1947 and has traditionally shown support for Palestinians, but right-wing Prime Minister Narendra Modi has forged strong ties with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well as lucrative defence cooperation between their two countries.
In a break with tradition, the ceremony ended with an address from the Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem.
The Roman Catholic cardinal visited Gaza in July following an Israeli strike on the compound of the parish of the Holy Family, which killed three people and injured nine others, including the parish priest.
He spoke to the auditorium via live-video link from Jerusalem.
“A greeting from Jerusalem, the Holy Land, where we are living such a such a dramatic, difficult and divisive moment. You know the news so I don’t need to go into that, it’s dramatic as are the images of destruction, death and so much pain. One of the problems is that there is so much pain that there is no longer space for the pain of the other,” he said
What I want to say is that we’re living in a climate of deep hate, which is increasingly radical within both the Israeli and Palestinian populations… we see it in the violence, but also in the language… which is having a dehumanizing effect. The war needs to stop and we hope it will end soon… we all need to work to create a different dialogue, different outcomes,” he said.
He called on the world of culture and cinema to also play its part.
“I hope that also from Venice there will be a positive contribution in this sense to help us think in a different way.”