The Venice Film Festival has taken the unusual step of scrapping its main jury press conference this year, we can reveal.
The festival, which gets underway next week, hasn’t made a public statement to confirm the break from protocol but confirmed the move to us after multiple requests to know if it was going ahead.
The move comes at a time of highly charged press conferences at A-list festivals with jurors and talent being quizzed by journalists repeatedly about global politics, especially the Israel-Gaza war.
The festival denied that the move was made with those considerations in mind and said instead it was a result of a “scheduling conflict”.
This year’s Venice Film Festival international jury is headed by Maggie Gyllenhaal with members comprising Tunisian director and screenwriter Kaouther Ben Hania, the English composer and artist Daniel Blumberg, the Italian professor Francesco Casetti, the French director and screenwriter Xavier Giannoli, the Afghan director and screenwriter Shahrbanoo Sadat, and the Hong Kong director and producer Johnnie To.
Ben Hania was at the festival last year with acclaimed drama The Voice Of Hind Rajab, about the tragic killing of five-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab.
At last year’s Venice jury press conference, jury head Alexander Payne admitted he was “unprepared” to answer questions about Gaza as political issues dominated.
This year’s Berlin Film Festival was a highly charged edition with the opening jury press conference proving to be a flashpoint after jury president Wim Wenders said filmmakers should stay out of politics in answer to a question on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
The festival had to publicly defend jury members and call for a different approach to press conferences following them being dominated by questions about politics. The subject of censorship was brought up by press at this year’s Cannes jury presser and dominated column inches for the event.
The festival will run September 2 – 12, 2026
