American actress Susan Sarandon lamented this Sunday her exclusion from some projects due to her criticisms of Israel, although she appreciates “a change in the narrative,” she said at the Venice Festival where she presents The Echo Chamber, a film adapting the latest script by filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci and competing for the Golden Lion. “I think the narrative has completely changed regarding the historical relevance of Palestine and the links between Zionism and the United States in our politics,” the actress responded when asked about the price she has had to pay personally and professionally for her stance against the war in Gaza. “Still, recently some films have been taken away from me because there are agencies that keep telling people not to hire me, but that is the power structure. I think, among the people, and especially internationally, I feel welcomed,” she stated.
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Sarandon is part of the cast, along with Italian Luca Marinelli and Swedish Alicia Vikander, of the film by Italian director Andrea Pallaoro that tells an intimate love story in a musician’s apartment where themes such as care, dependencies, desire, and control of feelings intertwine. Sarandon also recalled her friendship with Bertolucci and her admiration for the Italian master since she saw one of his early works, The Conformist (1970). “Later I became very good friends with him due to my relationship with Louis Malle, and I met him as a funny guy,” she said.
The American actress, winner of an Oscar in 1996 for Dead Man Walking, thanked the film’s director for including her in the project. “I thank Andrea for not paying attention to those warnings,” she said and warned that “there are still very entrenched positions within the industry” that remain hostile to her.
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Last February, when she received the International Goya, she thanked Spain and the Prime Minister for their position regarding Palestine and Israel: “These days when the world is dominated by violence and cruelty, I look around and see your president and many of these artists, and I feel they have the moral clarity to help me. I am in the middle of chaos and repression. Looking at you helps me feel less alone and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.” Sarandon, nominated four other times for the Oscar for Atlantic City, Thelma & Louise, Sweet and Lowdown and The Client—, praised Pedro Sánchez’s role in issues like Gaza (“he is on the right side of history”) at the press conference on the eve of the gala and highlighted Spain’s “strength and moral clarity” as “a country capable of denouncing situations like those suffered in Gaza.”
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