\n<\/p>\n
While receiving his lifetime achievement award, Clooney homed in on the importance of storytellers and truth seekers. \u201cWe\u2019re living through a moment in time where people in charge, the people with the most money, are telling us to fear one another. Fear<\/em> one another. But we know better than that, don\u2019t we?\u201d he asked. \u201cBecause history does teach us a lesson. It teaches us something. The first people that authoritarians try to shut down are not politicians. They\u2019re journalists who ask questions. They\u2019re the artists who refuse simple answers. They\u2019re the filmmakers, writers, actors\u2026who insist that someone you have never met is deserving of your empathy.\u201d<\/p>\n At the Wild Horse 9<\/em><\/a> press conference, writer-director Martin McDonagh talked at length<\/a> about his inherently political film about two CIA agents in 1970s Chile. \u201cI like questioning authority, questioning what we are told we have to accept,\u201d said McDonagh. \u201cI\u2019ve been very interested in the truth of what the CIA has been doing over the last 60 years, and the awful things they\u2019ve done all around the world. \u201cI think maybe that\u2019s something that\u2019s not talked about enough. We know what the KGB are like, but we probably don\u2019t question the CIA\u2019s activity as much as we ought to.\u201d<\/p>\n Sam Rockwell, Martin McDonagh, and John Malkovich of Wild Horse Nine<\/em> at a press conference in Venice.<\/p>\n <\/span>Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n Politics have moved\u00a0out of the press room and onto the streets. An open letter, Venice4Palestine<\/a>, has been circulating on social media, urging the Venice Film Festival to take \u201cconcrete action\u201d in support of Palestine. More than 200 actors and artists have signed the open letter, including but not limited to Alia Shawkat, Annie Earneaux, and Guy Pearce, who starred as media mogul Rupert Murdoch in Ink,<\/em> Venice\u2019s opening night film.<\/p>\n That doesn\u2019t mean every actor is necessarily game to answer the tough questions. When asked for their thoughts about the Trump administration\u2019s capture of Venezuelan president Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a> this past January, the Wild Horse 9<\/em> cast members, which include John Malkovich, Sam Rockwell, and Parker Posey, were reluctant to take the mic. \u201cI can\u2019t think anymore,\u201d said Malkovich. But McDonagh, who\u2019s Irish, answered the question. \u201cI think, for me, one of the frightening things is that they don\u2019t seem to be making it covert anymore, which is very strange,\u201d he said. \u201cLike in the 70s, at least these horrible people had the intelligence to keep their acts secret, but it just feels like things are getting stupider and stupider and stupider.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n