Lanthimos,Gavras were amongst a group of actors who have signed an open letter at the Cannes Film Festival

Leading Greek filmmakers Yorgos Lanthimos and Costa-Gavras were amongst a group of 350 international actors, directors and producers who have signed an open letter at the Cannes Film Festival condemning the brutal killing by Israeli armed forces of Fatima Hassouna, a young Palestinian photojournalist and protagonist of the acclaimed documentary, “Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk”.

The famous film festival opened with a tribute to the slain Gazan photojournalist from Juliette Binoche, the head of the 2025 Cannes Festival’s jury,  but the palpable anger and frustration of many was reflected in the strong language employed in the letter which was also signed by such cinematic luminaries as Pedro Almodóvar, Richard Gere, Guy Pierce, Ralph Fiennes, Susan Sarandon, Mark Ruffalo, Viggo Mortensen, Javier Bardem, Julie Delpy, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Alfonso Cuarón, David Cronenberg and Melissa Barrera as well as former Cannes winners Ruben Ostlund, Mike Leigh and Justine Triet.

The letter, published on the website of France’s Libération newspaper and the US magazine Variety, was headed “In Cannes, the horror of Gaza must not be silenced”.  

Addressed “For Fatem”, the letter took aim at the egregious silence and “passivity” within the wider creative arts sector in response to the tragic and appalling events unfolding in the Middle East.  

The letter read:  

Fatima Hassona (Fatem) was 25 years old. 

She was a Palestinian freelance photojournalist. She was targeted by the Israeli army on 16 April 2025, the day after it was announced that Sepideh Farsi’s film “Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk,” in which she was the star, had been selected in the ACID section of the Cannes Film Festival. 

She was about to get married. 

Ten of her relatives, including her pregnant sister, were killed by the same Israeli strike. 

Since the terrible massacres of 7 October 2023, no foreign journalist has been authorised to enter the Gaza Strip. The Israeli army is targeting civilians. More than 200 journalists have been deliberately killed. Writers, film-makers and artists are being brutally murdered. 

At the end of March, Palestinian filmmaker Hamdan Ballal, who won an Oscar for his film “No Other Land,” was brutally attacked by Israeli settlers and then kidnapped by the army, before being released under international pressure. The Oscar Academy’s lack of support for Hamdan Ballal sparked outrage among its own members and it had to publicly apologize for its inaction. 

We are ashamed of such passivity. 

Why is it that cinema, a breeding ground for socially committed works, seems to be so indifferent to the horror of reality and the oppression suffered by our sisters and brothers? 

As artists and cultural players, we cannot remain silent while genocide is taking place in Gaza and this unspeakable news is hitting our communities hard. 

What is the point of our professions if not to draw lessons from history, to make films that are committed, if we are not present to protect oppressed voices? 

Why this silence? 

The far right, fascism, colonialism, anti-trans and anti-LGBTQIA+, sexist, racist, islamophobic and antisemitic movements are waging their battle on the battlefield of ideas, attacking publishing, cinema and universities, and that’s why we have a duty to fight. 

Let’s refuse to let our art be an accomplice to the worst. 

Let us rise up. 

Let us name reality. 

Let us collectively dare to look at it with the precision of our sensitive hearts, so that it can no longer be silenced and covered up. 

Let us reject the propaganda that constantly colonizes our imaginations and makes us lose our sense of humanity. 

For Fatima, for all those who die in indifference. 

Cinema has a duty to carry their messages, to reflect our societies. 

Let’s act before it’s too late. 

The deaths of more than 50,0000 Palestinians, combined with the horrible spectre of starvation caused by the Israeli blockade on humanitarian aid and the threats of further ethnic cleansing, should arouse worldwide indignation for this abysmal loss of humanity.

As the open letter beseeches us, we cannot and must not remain silent while genocide is being committed.

In an emotional elegy to Fatima Hassouna, her friend and Palestinian poet Haidar al-Ghazali wrote:

“Fatima asked me to write her epitaph. A heavy task no text can fill. I don’t believe Fatima has gone or that this city will lose one of its clearest voices. I don’t believe it because Fatima suits life, the dreams she drew, step by step, image by image, poem by poem, song by song … The Israeli occupation killed Fatima and ten of her family members because she dreamed, because she laughed, because she’s real. Fatima is a part of a generation in Gaza bidding itself farewell.  Life made us slowly, and we know what we want.  We never heard of the sound of a plane unless it was bombing us, we never traveled except by closing our eyes as we looked out to sea. Among us are poets and artists and photographers and singers. We have the energy to build an abundance of beauty for a world that only needed to look to see us.”

As the open letter at Cannes declares, for Fatima, for all those who die in indifference, we all have a duty to carry their messages, to reflect our societies … before it’s too late.

George Vardas is the Arts and Culture Editor.  He is also a member of the Joint Justice Initiative lobbying for the recognition of the Armenian, Assyrian and Greek Genocides in the early part of the twentieth century by the Ottoman Turks.  A genocide denied is a genocide repeated.

Source: greekcitytimes.com–George Vardas