As Venice Film Festival reckons with where politics belong at the annual event, George Clooney did not mince words in his acceptance speech for a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement. On Wednesday, the movie star delivered an urgent speech about the place of stories in the fight against fascism.
“Stories are always dangerous to people who peddle in fear,” Clooney said. “The people who are afraid of books and music and stories, they’re never the heroes in history.”
Clooney’s acceptance speech comes just days after Venice Film Festival decided to scrap its annual jury press conference on Saturday before deciding to reinstate it on Sunday. These decisions came hot on the heels of more than 200 artists signing an open letter from the group Venice4Palestine appealing to “put Palestine in the spotlight of the Film Festival and bring the resistance of the Palestinian people to the center of public discourse.”
More to come …
