When the Sky Becomes a Place for Conscience
At a film festival built around images, stories, and the freedom to make ideas visible, another kind of visual statement is set to take shape on the Lido of Venice.
On Friday, September 11, dozens of kites for Gaza are scheduled to fly above the beach in front of the Palazzo del Cinema and Hotel Excelsior, creating what organizers describe as a symbolic “wall of conscience” during the 83rd Venice International Film Festival. The gathering is planned for 6:30 p.m. on the Lido beach facing the festival grounds.
The initiative, titled “Palestine Frees Us All: A Wall of Kites for Gaza in Front of the Venice Film Festival,” is being organized by Global Sumud Veneto together with Palestinian rights groups, associations, activists, and organizations participating in the White Thursday network across Italy.
The imagery is deliberately simple: kites rising above the beach, occupying the same public landscape as one of the world’s most celebrated film festivals. Yet the symbolism behind the action is considerably larger.
A Visual Protest at Venice 83
The 83rd Venice International Film Festival is taking place on the Lido from September 2 through September 12, 2026. Organized by La Biennale di Venezia and directed by Alberto Barbera, the festival brings filmmakers, actors, critics, journalists, and audiences together for one of the most prominent events on the international cinema calendar.
Against that backdrop, the planned kite action seeks to bring the war in Gaza and the question of Palestinian representation into the festival’s public space.
Organizers are renewing a call for the festival to raise the Palestinian flag alongside the flags representing other countries connected to films in the selection. Their appeal is linked, they say, to the presence of two Palestinian films in this year’s festival program.
The request has already become part of a broader conversation surrounding Venice this year. On September 7, a vessel associated with the Global Sumud Flotilla arrived at the Lido carrying a Palestinian flag, with activists using the arrival to renew their appeal for the flag to be displayed at the festival.
The kite gathering continues that effort, but through an image that is intentionally different from a conventional demonstration. Rather than placing the message only on banners or signs, organizers intend to put it into the sky.
Kites as Symbols of Childhood, Memory, and Freedom
There is something particularly striking about choosing kites for a gesture connected to Gaza.
A kite is associated with childhood, play, open space, and the freedom to look upward. It is also an object that depends on wind and movement: it cannot remain still, and its visibility changes constantly against the sky. At the Venice Lido, dozens of kites flying together can become a collective image without requiring a conventional monument or permanent installation.
That symbolism takes on another dimension when connected to children affected by war. The organizers’ use of kites for Gaza evokes an image of childhood that stands in sharp contrast to the realities represented in news coverage and testimony from the region.
The planned action therefore relies on visual language rather than a complicated structure. The beach, the sea, the festival buildings, and the sky become the backdrop. The kites become the message.
Cinema, Palestine, and the Politics of Visibility
The action arrives at a moment when Palestine has already become an important subject within the 2026 Venice festival environment.
The official festival program includes NAZA, a documentary directed by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, which was added to the Competition section and screened at the Palazzo del Cinema on September 10. La Biennale describes the film as examining systems behind the killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
Palestinian filmmakers are also represented at the festival. Among them are Palestinian director Muayad Alayan and producer Rami Alayan, who appeared at a September 7 photocall for Hiwar Ma’ Albahr (Conversations with the Sea), selected for the Venezia Spotlight section.
The presence of Palestinian cinema inevitably adds another layer to the debate over how the festival should respond to the wider political reality surrounding those films. For organizers of the kite action, the question is not simply whether Palestinian stories can be screened, but whether the festival’s physical and symbolic spaces should also acknowledge Palestine.
That distinction is at the center of the appeal for the Palestinian flag.
A Wider Call for Freedom of Expression
The September 11 action is also being presented by organizers as part of a national mobilization against DDL 1004, which they connect to concerns about freedom of expression and censorship.
In their statement, the organizers frame the kite action as a collective visual response to what they regard as attempts to restrict or suppress political expression. The message is therefore directed not only toward Gaza and Palestine, but also toward the broader question of what can be said, displayed, and represented within cultural institutions.
That makes the location particularly significant.
The Venice Film Festival is not simply a place where films are screened. It is an international cultural stage watched by journalists, filmmakers, artists, industry professionals, and audiences from around the world. A demonstration directly across from the Palazzo del Cinema can therefore reach far beyond the people physically standing on the beach.
The organizers are betting on the power of that image.
Venice Has Already Seen the Activism Reach the Lido
The kite action does not emerge in isolation. Political and solidarity activity connected to Gaza and Palestine has been visible around the Venice festival for more than one edition.
In 2025, demonstrations outside the festival included Palestinian flags and “Free Palestine” signs, while a larger mobilization took place on the Lido.
This year’s festival has again seen solidarity activity. On September 7, the arrival of the Global Sumud Flotilla-linked vessel at the Lido brought Palestinian flags and activists close to the Palazzo del Cinema. Italian media reported that the event was intended to draw attention to the demand that the Palestinian flag be displayed at the festival.
The planned kites continue that visual presence while shifting the focus from the water to the sky.
A Different Kind of Red Carpet Moment
There is an unavoidable contrast between the spectacle of the Venice red carpet and the image being proposed on the beach.
Inside the festival, cinema is presented through premieres, press conferences, photocalls, awards, and carefully constructed images. Outside, the organizers want a different image to command attention: dozens of kites moving together over the Lido.
Both are forms of visual storytelling.
The difference is who controls the frame.
The kite action seeks to make Gaza impossible to overlook during a global cultural event. Its organizers are asking the festival to acknowledge Palestine not only through films and filmmakers, but through a visible public gesture.
Whether the festival adopts that request or not, the action demonstrates the continuing pressure surrounding questions of culture, politics, representation, and institutional responsibility.
A Wall Without Bricks
The phrase “wall of conscience” captures the central idea of the event. It is a wall that cannot be built from stone. It has no permanent structure and no fixed boundary. Instead, it will exist through dozens of individual kites occupying the same stretch of sky.
That makes the gesture both fragile and powerful.
The wind can change. The kites can rise, fall, cross paths, or disappear into the distance. But for the organizers, their collective presence is intended to create a moment that cannot easily be separated from the festival landscape.
On September 11, the Lido is scheduled to become a meeting point between cinema and activism, between the spectacle of an international film festival and a political message that organizers want the world to see.
For a few hours, the sky above Venice may become the screen. And the kites, rather than actors or filmmakers, may provide its most striking image.
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