While receiving his lifetime achievement award, Clooney homed in on the importance of storytellers and truth seekers. “We’re living through a moment in time where people in charge, the people with the most money, are telling us to fear one another. Fear one another. But we know better than that, don’t we?” he asked. “Because history does teach us a lesson. It teaches us something. The first people that authoritarians try to shut down are not politicians. They’re journalists who ask questions. They’re the artists who refuse simple answers. They’re the filmmakers, writers, actors…who insist that someone you have never met is deserving of your empathy.”
At the Wild Horse 9 press conference, writer-director Martin McDonagh talked at length about his inherently political film about two CIA agents in 1970s Chile. “I like questioning authority, questioning what we are told we have to accept,” said McDonagh. “I’ve been very interested in the truth of what the CIA has been doing over the last 60 years, and the awful things they’ve done all around the world. “I think maybe that’s something that’s not talked about enough. We know what the KGB are like, but we probably don’t question the CIA’s activity as much as we ought to.”
Politics have moved out of the press room and onto the streets. An open letter, Venice4Palestine, has been circulating on social media, urging the Venice Film Festival to take “concrete action” in support of Palestine. More than 200 actors and artists have signed the open letter, including but not limited to Alia Shawkat, Annie Earneaux, and Guy Pearce, who starred as media mogul Rupert Murdoch in Ink, Venice’s opening night film.
That doesn’t mean every actor is necessarily game to answer the tough questions. When asked for their thoughts about the Trump administration’s capture of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro this past January, the Wild Horse 9 cast members, which include John Malkovich, Sam Rockwell, and Parker Posey, were reluctant to take the mic. “I can’t think anymore,” said Malkovich. But McDonagh, who’s Irish, answered the question. “I think, for me, one of the frightening things is that they don’t seem to be making it covert anymore, which is very strange,” he said. “Like in the 70s, at least these horrible people had the intelligence to keep their acts secret, but it just feels like things are getting stupider and stupider and stupider.”