"Silence is very dangerous, we should be able to say what we think without being threatened with never working again." This phrase was spoken by Susan Sarandon a few months ago in Spain during her acceptance speech for the Goya Honorary Award presented by the Academy of Cinema. This Sunday in Venice, she reiterated this sentiment. Not so much in relation to the film she was presenting, but despite it, alongside it, or thanks to it. As one wishes. "Lately, I have been removed from some projects because there are agencies that continue to tell people not to hire me," she commented at the Lido as if it were a continuation of what was said in February in Barcelona. "But that's how things are. I do believe, however, that outside my country, I am welcomed," she concluded.
The Echo Chamber is a story of love and pain. Italian director Andrea Pallaoro makes the latest script signed by Bernardo Bertolucci his own to reconstruct the relationship of passion and dependency, of sex and conversations with wine, of presence and absence, of freedom and simple slavery between the characters played by Luca Marinelli and Alicia Vikander. The former is a music producer and the latter a nurse. The former suffers and the latter soothes. And in between, Susan Sarandon brings to life a singer with the demeanor and elegance of an eternal myth; in cinema and in song. She is a widow and lonely woman who gradually learns to use suffering to create, which is how she calms herself, not cures, a wound of the unfathomable.
Sarandon mentioned on Sunday that she had warned Pallaoro not to work with her due to the negative consequences it could have for him and for the film's distribution in her country, a country where, as she commented, "the Zionist lobby still holds a lot of power." "That's why I thank Andrea for not heeding my warnings," she added.
Remember, in 2023, the Oscar winner for Dead Man Walking (1995) was fired by her agency after making comments at a pro-Palestinian demonstration. And earlier this year, during the Goya Awards, she stated feeling marginalized by the industry for calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. With that in mind, when asked at the Venice Film Festival press conference if, despite everything, she believed that something was changing in the United States, she decided to slightly contradict herself and show minimal optimism: "I think that, despite everything, the narrative has completely changed regarding the historical relevance of Palestine and the links between Zionists and the United States and our politics. That has been a great revelation for people. No one really understands why we are giving so much money to Israel," she said. And she continued: "There has been a shift in public opinion, but there are still positions in my industry held by Zionists who have not softened their feelings towards me." And with that said, she concluded: "But I found my family, I found my people. And I am fine."