The American actress Susan Sarandon, who in February received the International Goya in Barcelona, denounced this Sunday in Venice, where she presented the film The echo chamber, having been excluded from some projects due to her criticism of Israel and her support for Palestine.

The Venice Film Festival dressed up this Saturday and enthusiastically applauded the return of Nanni Moretti, one of the great Italian filmmakers of the last few decades. It had been thirty-seven years since the director of Caro diario had stepped onto the historic stage, since 1989 when his film Palombella rossa –which offered an acidic portrait of the bewilderment of the Italian left– was excluded from the Official Selection supposedly for political reasons; the film ended up being presented in a secondary section of the festival, the Critics' Week. However, Moretti has not shown any resentment during the presentation of Succederà questa notte, which is competing for the Golden Lion this year. In fact, the filmmaker wanted to downplay his almost four-decade distancing from the festival: “It is not true that I had anything against Venice; simply, in all this time, my films were never ready in the summer, which is when the festival is held. This time, instead of filming in the spring, I did it in the autumn and, therefore, it seemed natural to present the film there”.

Four days after a demonstration in support of the Palestinian people crossed the streets of the Lido, the Venice Film Festival hosted this Wednesday the premiere of The Voice of Hind Rajab, by Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania, which denounces the murder of six-year-old Hind Rajab at the hands of the Israeli army. The film had generated great expectations, especially due to the comments made by the Mostra's artistic director, Alberto Barbera, who, during the presentation of the program, warned of the film's dramatic force and controversial potential. This concern translated into tightened security controls at the entrances to the festival area. Thus, with a few minutes' delay, the screening of the film that has become the main contender for the Golden Lion of the Festival began.

The day after opening the Venice Film Festival with Madres Paralelas (Parallel Mothers), Pedro Almodóvar (Calzada de Calatrava, 1949) explains to ARA details about the humanist aspect and the sober tone of this melodrama in which he deals with the drama of the relatives of the victims who disappeared during the Civil War.