Venice Film Festival takes unprecedented step ahead of event

Ahead of film festivals, press conferences are an unusual sight for juries, but this time in Venice it appears that would not be the case.

The Venice Film Festival is yet to announce what reports say publicly is an unusual decision.

According to Deadline, however, the publication pressed the festival for an answer.

After multiple questions, the Venice Film Festival confirmed that the jury press conference will not happen.

The outlet noted the decision is an outlier; in film festival setups, a media schedule is standard.

However, with no press conference taking place next week, when the festival will happen, questions have been raised about whether political considerations came into play.

Previously, juries of several international film festivals faced questions about conflicts, particularly in the Middle East, that came to dominate them.

But the Venice Film Festival said that avoiding politically explosive questions is not the reason.

Instead, it was a scheduling conflict.

With Maggie Gyllenhaal set to head this year’s Venice Film Festival international jury, all eyes seemingly will be on them on how they navigate hot-button topics.