Venice Film Festival spotlights Gaza and war reporters

Several films at this year's Venice Film Festival are focusing on journalism, from Palestinian director Ahmed Hassouna's Gaza documentary “Citizen Osama” to works about war photography, Russian journalists in exile and tabloid media.

“Citizen Osama”, chosen as the Palestinian entry for the 2027 Academy Awards' foreign film category, follows a Palestinian journalist in Gaza. Hassouna, who remains in Gaza, wrote in the film's notes that a journalist there is not “a soulless camera” but someone also trying to find water, food and milk for his family.

The documentary shows Gaza City in ruins and covers the July 2024 killing of Al-Jazeera journalist Ismail al-Ghoul in an Israeli airstrike. UN experts, rights groups and activists have accused Israel of deliberately targeting Palestinian journalists. The Committee to Protect Journalists says more than 200 journalists have been killed in Gaza since October 2023.

Israeli authorities still block foreign reporters from entering Gaza except on tightly controlled tours organised by the military. In 2025, Palestinian photojournalist Fatima Hassouna was killed in an airstrike days after a film about her was selected for the Cannes Film Festival.

Other Venice titles include “La Ragazza con la Leica”, Alina Marazzi's film about Spanish Civil War photographer Gerda Taro; “My Undesirable Friends: Part II – Exile”, Julia Loktev's documentary about Russian journalists after Russia's invasion of Ukraine; Danny Boyle's “Ink”, about Rupert Murdoch's tabloid The Sun; and Lance Oppenheim's “Primetime”, based on NBC's “To Catch a Predator”.

Marazzi said the era of artificial intelligence and phone cameras had made accuracy and transparency in published images less certain, adding that freedom of the press must be defended. Another Gaza documentary, “NAZA”, by Oscar winners Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, is due to premiere next week.