Director Julian Schnabel pushed back Wednesday against pro-Palestinian activists\u2019 calls for his \u201cIn the Hand of Dante\u201d actors Gal Gadot and Gerard Butler to be disinvited from this year\u2019s Venice Film Festival over their past, public support of Israel.<\/p>\n
Schnabel made his feelings on the matter known during Wednesday\u2019s pre-premiere press conference for \u201cIn the Hand of Dante,\u201d in which he insisted that Gadot and Butler\u2019s personal views should not prevent them from promoting the film. \u201cI think there\u2019s no reason to boycott artists,\u201d Schnabel told journalists.<\/p>\n
More from TheWrap<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cI selected those actors for their merits as actors, and they did an extraordinary job in the film and that\u2019s about it,\u201d the filmmaker added, suggesting that no more questions be asked about the topic. \u201cI think we should talk about the movie, rather than this issue.\u201d<\/p>\n In conjunction with the start of this year\u2019s Venice Film Festival, an open letter was released by the Venice4Palestine collective urging the festival\u2019s organizers to take a clear stand in condemning Israel\u2019s actions in the ongoing war in Gaza. The letter\u2019s signatories featured filmmakers from across the globe, including Ken Loach, Paolo Sorrentino, C\u00e9line Sciamma, Audrey Diwan, and Arab and Tarzan Nasser, as well as actors Charles Dance, Toni Servillo and Jasmine Trinca.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Additional requests were made for the festival to disinvite potential attendees like Butler and Gadot, who have previously supported Israel. Neither was reportedly disinvited from the festival. Nonetheless, neither has traveled to Venice in support of \u201cIn the Hand of Dante.\u201d<\/p>\n Based on a 2002 novel by Nick Tosches, Schnabel\u2019s film centers on a handwritten manuscript of Dante Alighieri\u2019s \u201cThe Divine Comedy\u201d that is found in the Vatican library and eventually makes its way all the way to New York, where its authenticity is tested. In addition to Butler and Gadot, the film\u2019s cast includes Oscar Isaac, John Malkovich, Louis Cancelmi, Sabrina Impacciatore, Al Pacino, Jason Momoa, Benjamin Clementine and filmmaker Martin Scorsese.<\/p>\n Earlier in the festival, jury president Alexander Payne chose not to answer a question about his personal stance on the military action in Gaza.<\/p>\n \u201cQuite frankly, I feel a little bit unprepared for that question. I\u2019m here to judge and talk about cinema,\u201d Payne told journalists at a press conference last Wednesday. \u201cMy political views, I\u2019m sure, are in agreement with many of yours. But as far as my relationship with the festival and what the industry does, I have to think about that for a while to give you a measured response.\u201d<\/p>\n The Venice Film Festival\u2019s world premiere screening of \u201cIn the Hand of Dante\u201d is scheduled for Wednesday night.<\/p>\n The post Julian Schnabel Defends Gal Gadot and Gerard Butler, Says Being Pro-Israel Is \u2018No Reason to Boycott Artists\u2019<\/a> appeared first on TheWrap<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source ca.news.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Director Julian Schnabel pushed back Wednesday against pro-Palestinian activists\u2019 calls for his \u201cIn the Hand of Dante\u201d actors Gal Gadot and Gerard Butler to be disinvited from this year\u2019s Venice Film Festival over their past, public support of Israel. Schnabel made his feelings on the matter known during Wednesday\u2019s pre-premiere press conference for \u201cIn the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1956684,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[347098,348755,361350,308806,361351,333428],"class_list":["post-1995845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-gal-gadot","tag-gerard-butler","tag-in-the-hand-of-dante","tag-israel","tag-julian-schnabel","tag-venice-film-festival"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Ryan-Reynolds-Dwayne-Johnson-Tessa-Thompson-and-More-Set-Panels.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1995845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1995845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1995845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1956684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1995845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1995845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1995845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/div>\n