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Venice Film Festival Director Rejects Petition to Boycott Israeli Films, Insists They’re Not ‘Anti-Palestinian in Any Way’
Actor Sveva Alviti, who hosted the opening ceremony of the 81st Venice Film Festival, and director Alberto Barbera react, in Venice, Italy, on August 27, 2024. Photo: Reuters/Yara Nardi
Alberto Barbera, director of the 81st Venice Film Festival currently taking place, responded to an open letter published last week that called on the iconic film festival not to screen two Israeli films because of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.
More than 300 film industry figures from around the world signed the open letter which focused its attention on “Why War” from director Amos Gitai and Dani Rosenberg’s Hebrew-language film “Al Klavim Veanashim” (“Of Dogs and Men”). In the letter, which was published by Artists for Palestine Italia on the opening of the Venice Film Festival, the signatories claimed that the two films were created by Israeli production companies “complicit in whitewashing Israel’s oppression against Palestinians” in Gaza. The filmmakers, actors, and other film industry members condemned the Venice Film Festival for its “unacceptable” and “immoral” decision to showcase the films, and expressed outrage regarding the festival’s “silence” about “Israel’s atrocities against the Palestinian people.”
“Al Klavim Veanashim” will screen at the Venice Film Festival later this week in the Orizzonti competition and “Why War” made its world premiere on Saturday out of competition.
In a recent interview with Deadline, Barbera started off by saying that like other major international film festivals, the Venice Film Festival is staying neutral when it comes to the Israel-Hamas war.
“Have you seen any major film festival ‘take a side’ in this conflict?” he asked. “We are a space open to everyone and to people with different political views. We show films that highlight different views on all sorts of issues. I don’t want to take sides and I can’t make such public statements for the festival in my role as festival director.”
Barbera was then asked to comment on those who believe there is a lack of support, particularly in Hollywood, for the plight of Palestinians living in Gaza during the current war that started in response to the Hamas terrorist attacks on Oct. 7 in southern Israel.
“I think we’ve seen many Pro-Palestinian demonstrations all over the world, but hardly any for the hostages,” he responded. “We must not forget the [Oct. 7] massacre that took place which sparked this conflict. Of course, I understand filmmakers signing a petition in support of Palestinians and the awful, painful position of the population there, especially the children. It’s hard to even think about it.”
“What [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu is doing in Gaza is a war crime, and so was October 7,” he added. “But we wouldn’t ever withdraw a film on ideological grounds. The films that were asked to be withdrawn by the 300 filmmakers are not anti-Palestinian films in any way, quite the opposite.”
Gitai, the director of “Why War,” said on Saturday that his anti-war film did not receive funding from the Israeli government and although it focuses on war, it examines the topic from a general perspective and does not mention “the intoxicated Israeli-Palestinian relationship.”
The 81st Venice Film Festival runs from Aug. 28-Sept. 7.
The post Venice Film Festival Director Rejects Petition to Boycott Israeli Films, Insists They’re Not ‘Anti-Palestinian in Any Way’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
i24 News – Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Sunday that the government would establish an administration to encourage the voluntary migration of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
“We are establishing a migration administration, we are preparing for this under the leadership of the Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] and Defense Minister [Israel Katz],” he said at a Land of Israel Caucus at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. “The budget will not be an obstacle.”
Referring to the plan championed by US President Donald Trump, Smotrich noted the “profound and deep hatred towards Israel” in Gaza, adding that “sources in the American government” agreed “that it’s impossible for two million people with hatred towards Israel to remain at a stone’s throw from the border.”
The administration would be under the Defense Ministry, with the goal of facilitating Trump’s plan to build a “Riviera of the Middle East” and the relocation of hundreds of thousands of Gazans for rebuilding efforts.
“If we remove 5,000 a day, it will take a year,” Smotrich said. “The logistics are complex because you need to know who is going to which country. It’s a potential for historical change.”
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Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30
A general view shows the plenum at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – The Knesset’s (Israeli parliament’s) Special Committee for Foreign Workers held a discussion on Sunday to examine the needs of wounded and disabled IDF soldiers and the response foreign caregivers could provide.
During the discussion, data from the Defense Minister revealed that the number of registered IDF wounded and disabled veterans rose from 62,000 to 78,000 since the war began on October 7, 2023. “Most of them are reservists and 51 percent of the wounded are up to 30 years old,” the ministry’s report said. The number will increase, the ministry assesses, as post-trauma cases emerge.
The committee chairwoman, Knesset member Etty Atiya (Likud), emphasized the need to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy for the wounded and to remove obstacles. “There is no dispute that the IDF disabled have sacrificed their bodies and souls for the people of Israel, for the state of Israel,” she said. Addressing the veterans, she continued: “And we, as public representatives and public servants alike, must do everything, but everything, to improve your lives in any way possible, to alleviate your pain and the distress of your family members who are no less affected than you.”
Currently, extensions are being given to the IDF veterans on a three-month basis, which Atiya said creates uncertainty and fear among the patients.
“The committee calls on the Interior Minister [Moshe Arbel] to approve as soon as possible the temporary order on our table, so that it will reach the approval of the Knesset,” she said, adding that she “intends to personally approach the Director General of the Population Authority [Shlomo Mor-Yosef] on the matter in order to promote a quick and stable solution.”
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Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Sky News Arabia in Damascus, Syria in this handout picture released by the Syrian Presidency on August 8, 2023. Syrian Presidency/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Over 1,300 people were killed in two days of fighting in Syria between security forces under the new Syrian Islamist leaders and fighters from ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect on the other hand, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Sunday.
Since Thursday, 1,311 people had been killed, according to the Observatory, including 830 civilians, mainly Alawites, 231 Syrian government security personnel, and 250 Assad loyalists.
The intense fighting broke out late last week as the Alawite militias launched an offensive against the new government’s fighters in the coastal region of the country, prompting a massive deployment ordered by new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.
“We must preserve national unity and civil peace as much as possible and… we will be able to live together in this country,” al-Sharaa said, as quoted in the BBC.
The death toll represents the most severe escalations since Assad was ousted late last year, and is one of the most costly in terms of human lives since the civil war began in 2011.
The counter-offensive launched by al-Sharaa’s forces was marked by reported revenge killings and atrocities in the Latakia region, a stronghold of the Alawite minority in the country.
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