4 min readSep 3, 2025 12:34 PM IST
First published on: Sep 3, 2025 at 12:33 PM IST
Last weekend, thousands of protesters marched to the principal area of the Venice Film Festival, turning one of cinema’s most glamorous events into a site of conscience. Waving Palestinian flags and holding signs that read, “You are all an audience to genocide,” demonstrators sought to pierce the festival’s glitter with reminders of Gaza’s devastation — tens of thousands killed, famine declared, and children buried under rubble.
It was not simply a parallel protest. Among those who joined the demonstrations were artists themselves. Italian actor Roberto Zibetti, who was in Venice with three films, including the opening-night political drama La Grazia, marched alongside protesters. “It’s symbolically interesting to say that creativity can be an arsenal of peace,” he said, adding that actors on stage and screen are expected to speak emphatically. “I’m happy to make louder the simple sentence of ‘Stop killing.’” The protests were also bolstered by an open letter issued by Venice4Palestine, a collective of filmmakers and media workers. Signed by hundreds of actors, directors, and producers — including French actor Swann Arlaud, British actor-director Charles Dance, and Gaza-born filmmakers Arab and Tarzan Nasser — the letter urged the festival to use its spotlight to confront the devastation in Gaza. “We all have a duty to amplify the stories and voices of those who are being massacred,” the letter read.
The question, however, lingers beyond Venice: How much should artists be held accountable? And can art ever be separated from politics?
The simple answer is no.
The notion that art can be a neutral, apolitical space has long been held, especially by those in industries that thrive on escapism. But cinema, music, literature, and visual art have always been tethered to politics, whether through what they represent or what they omit. The act of storytelling is itself a choice of perspective. Pretending otherwise risks turning art into little more than a decorative backdrop for power.
Festivals like VFF are not just cultural showcases; they are global platforms with the eyes of the world fixed on them. When Hollywood stars glide down the red carpet as Gaza’s civilians face starvation, the silence becomes deafening. It isn’t that actors or directors must all become political spokespersons, but their visibility carries moral weight. As one Venetian protester put it, “This is not a political situation. This is a human situation.”
History offers reminders. During apartheid, boycotts of artists who performed in South Africa were seen as necessary acts of solidarity. Silence prolonged normalisation. The same principle applies now: Refusing to draw boundaries between art and politics is not an intrusion; it is an ethical necessity.
This is why calls to boycott figures like Israeli actor Gal Gadot, who has openly supported the Israeli military, or Gerard Butler, who attended pro-army fundraisers, should not be dismissed as censorship. They are part of a larger reckoning over complicity. The Venice Biennale’s insistence on not disinviting such artists reflects a reluctance to confront the uncomfortable truth: Festivals cannot claim neutrality while hosting voices aligned with state violence.
Of course, critics warn of art being co-opted by politics, that films should be judged by craft rather than ideology. Yet this assumes that art exists in a vacuum, untouched by the world it emerges from. But every film, every performance, every festival selection is already political — shaped by funding, markets, and cultural currents. To strip politics from art is not to preserve purity; it is to erase responsibility.
What unfolded in Venice is more than a side story to cinema’s glitz. It is a reminder that global stages carry global duties. Artists cannot remain insulated in creative bubbles when the very audiences they seek are living through war, displacement, or famine.
Art does not need to abandon beauty, spectacle, or imagination. But it must recognise that silence, too, is a statement. And in times of genocide and siege, neutrality is not art — it is complicity.
anusree.kc@expressindia.com
Metropolitan Police officers carry a person from a protest in Parliament Square in support of Palestine Action, organised by Defend Our Juries who are campaigning to de-proscribe the organisation, in London. (AP) 
Share
