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Venice’s Jury Press Conference Cancellation Raises Questions About Gaza and Palestine
The Venice Film Festival says its traditional 2026 jury press conference will probably not take place because of a scheduling conflict, replacing it with a journalists’ welcome cocktail. The controversy comes as Venice faces renewed demands to take an explicit position on Gaza, while its 2026 program includes two Pa...
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Key takeaways
- The Venice Film Festival says its traditional 2026 jury press conference will probably not take place because of a scheduling conflict, replacing it with a journalists’ welcome cocktail.
- The controversy comes as Venice faces renewed demands to take an explicit position on Gaza, while its 2026 program includes two Palestinian productions and the Gaza focused documentary NAZA .
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The Venice International Film Festival has canceled—or, in the festival’s formulation, will “probably not” hold—its traditional opening press conference for the main competition jury. Organizers told Variety that a scheduling conflict was responsible and said a welcome cocktail for journalists would be arranged instead. 21 Deadline reported the change as an unusual break with festival practice and said Venice denied that political considerations were involved.
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The decision has drawn scrutiny because it came immediately after a new Venice4Palestine appeal calling on the festival and its parent organization, the Venice Biennale, to take concrete action in support of Palestine. The available evidence establishes the timing and the competing explanations, but not a causal link between the Gaza controversy and the canceled press event.
What Venice has said
The festival’s stated explanation is logistical: a scheduling conflict involving the jury’s usual press appearance. The event is being replaced by a journalists’ welcome cocktail, according to the festival’s comments to Variety. 21
That explanation has not been accompanied by publicly disclosed details about the conflict. At the same time, reporting from Deadline says the festival denied that questions about Israel and Gaza influenced the decision. 45 The most defensible conclusion is therefore limited: the press conference is not going ahead as planned, Venice attributes the change to scheduling, and political motivation remains unproven.
Why the timing has prompted skepticism
The change was reported shortly after Venice4Palestine published an open letter titled “Yet Gaza Continues to Burn.” The appeal had more than 200 signatories, including Annie Ernaux, Roger Waters, Isabel Coixet, Matteo Garrone, Guy Pearce and Alia Shawkat. It called for concrete institutional action, including flying the Palestinian flag during the festival. 17
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The canceled press conference would ordinarily have offered journalists a concentrated opportunity to question jury members and festival leadership about the war in Gaza, the festival’s policies and the relationship between artistic programming and institutional responsibility. Its removal therefore changes the setting in which those questions might be asked, even if the festival’s scheduling explanation is accurate.
That is the central distinction between evidence and suspicion: the sequence of events makes the decision politically sensitive, but it does not demonstrate that Venice canceled the conference to avoid political questions.
Venice4Palestine’s demands
The 2026 appeal goes beyond asking Venice to screen Palestinian films. It urges the Biennale, the film festival and the wider audiovisual sector to take a clear public position in support of Palestine. One specific request reported by the Associated Press news agency was for the festival to end collaborations with entities supporting the Israeli government and rescind invitations to actors Gerard Butler and Gal Gadot. 44
Other reporting on the appeal highlights the request for a Palestinian flag to be displayed alongside the flags representing films in the official selection. 34 The group’s position is that programming Palestinian work is not equivalent to adopting an institutional stance on Gaza.
A dispute with recent precedent
This is not Venice’s first politically charged exchange connected to the Israel-Gaza war.
In 2024, more than 300 film-industry figures called on Venice not to screen two Israeli films. Festival director Alberto Barbera rejected the request, arguing that the films were not anti-Palestinian and defending the festival’s artistic-selection principles. 36
The issue returned in 2025, when Venice4Palestine urged Venice and the Biennale to take a stronger public position on Gaza. Activists also organized demonstrations and other actions around the festival. 42
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The 2026 dispute consequently reflects a broader argument over cultural neutrality. Venice has presented itself as a space for artistic selection and debate rather than an institution that makes direct political statements, while Venice4Palestine is demanding that the festival recognize the political consequences of its institutional choices. 42
Who is on the 2026 competition jury?
The Venezia 83 competition jury is chaired by Maggie Gyllenhaal. Its members are Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania, British composer Daniel Blumberg, Italian film scholar Francesco Casetti, French director Xavier Giannoli, Afghan director Shahrbanoo Sadat and Hong Kong filmmaker Johnnie To. 2
Under the festival’s regulations, the international jury awards the Golden Lion and other official competition prizes. 9 It is a prize jury, not the body that selects the festival’s lineup. There is also no public evidence in the supplied reporting that any juror requested the press-conference change.
The jury’s international composition is nevertheless relevant to the controversy because a public appearance by prominent filmmakers and cultural figures could reasonably be expected to attract questions about Gaza, artistic responsibility and the festival’s response to the Venice4Palestine appeal.
Palestinian and Gaza-related films in the program
Venice’s 2026 selection includes Palestinian and Gaza-related work, which is an important part of the context:
- Al Mowaten Osama (Citizen Osama), directed by Ahmed Hassouna, is listed as a France–Palestine production.
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- Hiwar ma’ albahr (Conversation With the Sea), directed by Muayad Alayan, is a Palestine–Netherlands–Saudi Arabia–Qatar production in the Venice Spotlight section.
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- NAZA, directed by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, was added to the main competition. Venice’s official description says the documentary was shot at night from rooftops in Tel Aviv and examines systems behind the killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
These selections demonstrate that Palestinian and Gaza-focused cinema is present in the 2026 program. They do not, however, answer Venice4Palestine’s separate demand for an explicit institutional statement or symbolic action such as displaying the Palestinian flag. That difference—between representation through programming and public political positioning—is at the heart of the dispute.
What is known—and what remains unproven
The confirmed picture is narrower than some headlines suggest:
- Venice’s traditional main-jury press conference will not proceed as planned, with the festival citing a scheduling conflict and proposing a press welcome cocktail instead.
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- The decision came immediately after a Venice4Palestine letter with more than 200 signatories and demands for concrete action on Palestine.
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- The festival has faced related Gaza and Palestine pressure in previous editions.
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- Venice’s 2026 program includes two Palestinian productions and the Gaza-focused documentary NAZA.
- No supplied source establishes that political pressure caused the cancellation, that the jury objected to the event, or that the festival intended to suppress questions about Gaza.
The cancellation is therefore significant less as proof of a hidden motive than as a decision made at a moment when the festival’s claim to political neutrality is under unusually intense examination.
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The Venice Film Festival says its traditional 2026 jury press conference will probably not take place because of a scheduling conflict, replacing it with a journalists’ welcome cocktail. The controversy comes as Venice faces renewed demands to take an explicit position on Gaza, while its 2026 program includes two Palestinian productions and the Gaza focused documentary NAZA .
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