Director Julian Schnabel has rejected calls for actors in his new film – including Gal Gadot – to be boycotted over their support for Israel.
The award-winning filmmaker is at Venice Film Festival to premiere his ambitious new film In the Hand of Dante, which spans over 700 years and has a cast including Oscar Isaac, Gadot, Gerard Butler, John Malkovich, Al Pacino, and Jason Momoa.
Ahead of the festival’s start, organisers were sent an open letter signed by over 1,500 people – including film industry figures – from the group Venice4Palestine (V4P) calling on the festival ‘to be more courageous and clear in condemning the ongoing genocide in Gaza.’
They also pushed for Gadot and co-star Butler to be disinvited from the festival because of their past support for Israel and the IDF.
‘I think there’s no reason to boycott artists,’ Schnabel told journalists including Metro at a press conference on Wednesday.
‘I selected those actors for their merits as actors – and they’ve done an extraordinary job in the film – and that’s about it. I think we should talk about the movie rather than this issue.’
While neither star had their invitations revoked, both have stayed away from the Lido this year.
Gadot, who has previously condemned Hamas and voiced her support for the Israeli hostages, suggested earlier this month that ‘pressure on celebrities to speak out against Israel’ contributed to Disney’s live-action remake of Snow White bombing at the box office.
Meanwhile, Butler was photographed at a 2018 gala for the Friends of the IDF in Los Angeles, but has made no public comment on Israel or the situation in Gaza since October 7, 2023.
In the new film, In the Hand of Dante, they star in dual roles like Oscar Isaac, who leads the cast as both real-life writer Nick Tosches and famed Italian medieval poet Dante Alighieri.
Johnny Depp was initially slated to play the main role when he and Schnabel first collaborated on the film 15 years ago before ‘things changed a bit between Nick and Johnny’ and he exited the project.
Isaac first read the script nine years ago and told Schnabel, according to the director: ‘If you’re going to do this, I’m your man.’
The star said at the conference that he was attracted to the project due to its ‘impossibility’.
‘It felt like a matter of plunging in and holding on – and letting go. We moved so quickly and so fast from one incredible location and set of circumstances to the next,’ the actor, who also had Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein premiering at the festival too.
When asked to try and define his genre-defining film, Schnabel responded: ‘It’s a tragi-comedy. I didn’t know that’s what I was doing, but I think life is like that. It’s funny, it’s tragic, it’s quite mad.’
In the Hand of Dante premieres at Venice Film Festival on Wednesday. It is yet to receive a UK release date.
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