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Hollywood celebrities Riz Ahmed, Juliette Binoche, Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, and Guillermo del Toro are among the latest signatories condemning the genocide in Gaza in an open letter originally published Monday on the eve of the Cannes Festival.

“We cannot remain silent while genocide is taking place in Gaza,” read the letter initiated by several pro-Palestinian activist groups and published in French newspaper Liberation and US magazine Variety.

The signatories, which initially included 370 filmmakers and actors, decried the death of Gazan photojournalist Fatma Hassona.

Hassona, 25, is the subject of a documentary which premiered in Cannes on Thursday by Iranian director Sepideh Farsi, titled Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk.

Hassona was killed along with 10 relatives in an Israeli air strike on her family home in northern Gaza last month, the day after the documentary was announced as part of the ACID (a Cannes Film Festival parallel section) Cannes selection.

The letter also highlighted that Palestinian filmmaker Hamdan Ballal, who won an Academy Award for his film No Other Land, “was brutally attacked by Israeli settlers and then kidnapped by the army, before being released under international pressure.”

The original list of signatories included Mark Ruffalo, Guy Pearce, Ralph Fiennes, Melissa Barrera, Yorgos Lanthimos, Javier Bardem, Hannah Einbinder, Pedro Almodóvar, David Cronenberg, Alfonso Cuarón, Mike Leigh, Alex Gibney, Viggo Mortensen, Cynthia Nixon, and Tessa Ross, Variety reported.

There are 59 new signatories.

The full letter, as reported by Variety, read:

Fatma Hassona was 25 years old.

She was a Palestinian freelance photojournalist. She was targeted by the Israeli army on 16 April 2025, the day after it was announced that Sepideh Farsi’s film Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, in which she was the star, had been selected in the ACID section of the Cannes Film Festival.

She was about to get married.

Ten of her relatives, including her pregnant sister, were killed by the same Israeli strike.

Since the terrible massacres of October 7, 2023, no foreign journalist has been authorised to enter the Gaza Strip. The Israeli army is targeting civilians. More than 200 journalists have been deliberately killed. Writers, film-makers and artists are being brutally murdered.

At the end of March, Palestinian filmmaker Hamdan Ballal, who won an Oscar for his film No Other Land, was brutally attacked by Israeli settlers and then kidnapped by the army, before being released under international pressure. The Oscar Academy’s lack of support for Hamdan Ballal sparked outrage among its own members and it had to publicly apologise for its inaction.

We are ashamed of such passivity.

Why is it that cinema, a breeding ground for socially committed works, seems to be so indifferent to the horror of reality and the oppression suffered by our sisters and brothers?

As artists and cultural players, we cannot remain silent while genocide is taking place in Gaza and this unspeakable news is hitting our communities hard.

What is the point of our professions if not to draw lessons from history, to make films that are committed, if we are not present to protect oppressed voices?

Why this silence?

The far right, fascism, colonialism, anti-trans and anti-LGBTQIA+, sexist, racist, Islamophobic and antisemitic movements are waging their battle on the battlefield of ideas, attacking publishing, cinema and universities, and that’s why we have a duty to fight.

Let’s refuse to let our art be an accomplice to the worst.

Let us rise up.

Let us name reality.

Let us collectively dare to look at it with the precision of our sensitive hearts, so that it can no longer be silenced and covered up.

Let us reject the propaganda that constantly colonises our imaginations and makes us lose our sense of humanity.

For Fatma, for all those who die in indifference.

Cinema has a duty to carry their messages, to reflect our societies.

Let’s act before it’s too late.