Reflecting on the Venice Film Festival's Bold Political Statements

Big and flashy film festivals like Venice are often branded apolitical, a bubble innocently detached from more pressing global issues. At this year’s edition, the wider festival culture - from the leading celebrity attendees on down - contradicted this accusation, asserting a clear stance on the genocide in Gaza. The festival’s biggest public arenas, from the red carpet to its press conferences on to the opulent Sala Grande, were all co-opted by guests expressing their support for Palestine, in a landscape over the past two years where there’s been censure for speaking out.

The film in competition that galvanised support this way, The Voice of Hind Rajab, won a deserved runner-up Grand Jury Prize - rumours suggest it came very close to grabbing the top prize, if not for a few hold-out jury members. But even the Golden Lion winner Jim Jarmusch, awarded for his tender family drama Father Mother Sister Brother, was directly involved in the political upswell, condemning his distributor MUBI at the film’s press conference for taking investment from an Israeli military collaborator.

Whereas the Berlinale has been a difficult environment for political free speech, and Cannes this year turned down both The Voice of Hind Rajab and Nadav Lapid’s Yes, which would’ve swung media attention towards Gaza further than they would’ve liked, Venice should be commended for making this era’s defining geopolitical crisis its headline concern. With BFI London and IDFA coming up, two festivals in major European cities which have also become more politicised, expect a change in public sentiment and official messaging, as the festival space seeks to divide itself from intergovernmental consensus on the war.

Looking closer at the anticipated films that world premiered, you couldn’t claim it was a vintage year - critics on the lookout for masterpieces were disappointed. But only having been on the ground from Monday onwards, and following my colleagues’ coverage the days before, most competition films at least provided provocation and something to argue about. Whether it was A House of Dynamite and Bugonia prodding the US political zeitgeist, or Benny Safdie and Mona Fastvold, in The Smashing Machine and The Testament of Ann Lee respectively, breaking from their past major collaborators to offer their idiosyncratic tone and mise-en-scène, every day provided a talking point for our evening Aperols. It feels like the 2020s have truly begun in cinematic terms, with production budgets becoming ever-polarised in respective parts of the industry, and AI tools being normalised in filmmaking workflows. Venice will remain a key place to track this, but we hope not for worse.

Below is a full list of the competitions awardees:

Golden Lion for Best FilmFather Mother Sister Brother - Jim Jarmusch

Silver Lion - Grand Jury PrizeThe Voice of Hind Rajab - Kaouther Ben Hania

Silver Lion - Award for Best DirectorBenny Safdie - The Smashing Machine 

Special Jury PrizeBelow the Clouds - Gianfranco Rosi

Volpi Cup for Best ActressXin Zhilei - The Sun Rises on Us All 

Volpi Cup for Best ActorToni Servillo - La Grazia 

Award for Best ScreenplayValérie Donzelli, Gilles Marchand - At Work 

Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best New TalentLuna Wedler - Silent Friend