“As the spotlight turns on the Venice Film Festival, we’re in danger of going through yet another major event that remains indifferent to this human, civil, and political tragedy,” the letter reads. “‘The show must go on,’ we are told, as we’re urged to look away — as if the ‘film world’ had nothing to do with the ‘real world.‘”

For once, the letter continues, “the show must stop. We must interrupt the flow of indifference and open a path to awareness,” adding, “there is no cinema without humanity.”

The V4P (Venice for Palestine) movement, led by some 1,500 Italian and international film icons — including Marco Bellocchio, Matteo Garrone, Alice Rohrwacher, Ken Loach, and Céline Sciamma — sent a letter to the festival last Friday urging it to officially criticize the “ongoing genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing across Palestine.“ In a second, more recent letter, it requested the withdrawal of invitations to two celebrities — Gal Gadot and Gerard Butler — for having previously adopted pro-Israeli positions.