The 82nd edition of the Venice Film Festival concluded on Saturday with its awards ceremony. Some of the most acclaimed and celebrated films from around the world competed in the main festival section, as well as the prestigious Orizzonti (Horizons) section.
The situation there has been a hot button topic throughout the 82nd edition of the festival, which unfolded just six weeks shy of the second anniversary Hamas Operation Al Aqsa Storm against the Zionist Israeli regime on October 7 2023.
At least 64,000 people living in the Gaza Strip have been massacred in the subsequent Israeli genocidal campaign aimed at wiping out Gazans. This is while agencies have warned of a looming “a man-made” famine, with at least 132,000 children under five-years-old expected to suffer from acute malnutrition.
US indie director Jim Jarmusch unexpectedly won the coveted Golden Lion at the Venice film festival with Father Mother Sister Brother, a three-part meditation on the uneasy tie between parents and their adult children.
He has declared his opposition to the continued blockade and bombing of Gaza by sticking a chest badge on his coat which read "Enough." He had previously expressed concern about the financial ties of one of his film's distributors to the Israeli army.
Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania was the most outspoken as she received the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize for The Voice of Hind Rajab, according to a report by the website Deadline.
According to a report by The Guardian, the Voice of Hind Rajab, which uses the real audio of a young girl’s desperate pleas for help as her car comes under Israeli gunfire, was the fan favourite, winning a record 23-minute standing ovation at its premiere. The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw said it was “a fierce, vehement piece of work”.
In her acceptance speech, Ben Hania said that, “Cinema cannot bring Hind back, nor can it erase the atrocity committed against her. Nothing can ever restore what was taken, but cinema can preserve her voice, make it resonate across borders.
The film about the killing of six-year-old Hind Rajab, who was in a car with family members which was fired on by Israeli forces at they tried to flee Gaza City in early 2024, rocked the festival earlier in the week, receiving a record-breaking 23 minutes and 40 second ovations.
Apart from those two winners, others also paid tribute to Gaza. Elsewhere, Italy’s Toni Servillo was named best actor for his wry portrayal of a weary president nearing the end of his mandate in La Grazia, paid tribute to the activists who are trying to end the blockade of Gaza by sailing boats towards Gaza.
He said the activists"have decided to bravely sail towards Palestine and bring a sign of humanity to a land where human dignity is trampled on every day and in a brutal way."
Moreover, Indian filmmaker Anuparna Roy created history with a Best Director win for Songs of Forgotten Trees in the Horizons section. She said in her address to the audience that every child deserves peace; Palestine is no exception. She added that she stands with Palestine, even if it upsets his country.
Maryam Touzani, a Moroccan filmmaker and winner of the Armani Beauty Audience Award for her film “Calle Malaga”, ” asked the audience in her speech, how many mothers must become childless before this catastrophe ends? One should not allow our humanity to be taken away from us.
Thus, the 82nd Venice Film Festival, considered the most important and fascinating film festival in the world, carried a clear message in 2025: the voice of Gaza will not be silenced, and artists will use various opportunities to convey the voices of the people of that land until justice is achieved.
