The Gaza Cinema Academy has launched at the 2026 Venice Film Festival, bringing together Palestinian, Arab and international filmmakers and industry figures behind a long-term plan for film education, training and production in Gaza. Co-founded by Palestinian filmmaker Mai Masri, the academy arrives as Palestinian cinema receives major attention in Venice, with Ahmed Hassouna’s Citizen Osama also making its world premiere and entering the 2027 Academy Awards race as Palestine’s official submission.
The academy is designed to create sustainable film education and training inside Gaza while connecting emerging filmmakers with the wider international film community. Its work will include supporting young talent and women, developing and producing Palestinian films, and building links with festivals, cultural institutions, film funds and production companies. The goal is not simply to respond to the current crisis but to create an institution that can continue supporting filmmakers in Gaza over the long term.
The timing is especially significant because Gaza’s cultural infrastructure has suffered damage during the conflict. Instead of treating filmmaking as something that must wait for a period of stability, the academy is being planned as a permanent, forward-looking investment in skills and creative work. That approach gives the project a purpose beyond documenting the present: it aims to help build the people, knowledge and networks needed for Gaza’s cinema.
The initiative has attracted an unusually broad group of supporters. Alongside Mai Masri and fellow Palestinian filmmakers Ezzaldeen Shalah and Annemarie Jacir, the academy has backing from Kaouther Ben Hania, Hiam Abbas, Ramy Youssef and Saleh Bakri. Italian producer Graziella Bildesheim and Cairo-based film industry figure Alaa Karkouti are also involved. Kaouther Ben Hania’s presence carries particular weight after her film The Voice of Hind Rajab won the Silver Lion at Venice in 2025.
That film became one of the defining moments of the previous festival. The Voice of Hind Rajab received a standing ovation lasting 23 minutes and 50 seconds, with several reports rounding the figure to 24 minutes. The response showed the international attention Palestinian stories could receive on one of cinema’s most important stages. Its impact also helped create a wider context for conversations about supporting Palestinian filmmakers beyond individual films.
This year, Citizen Osama adds another important part to that story. Directed by Ahmed Hassouna, the documentary follows Osama, a former artistic photographer who becomes a war documentarian in northern Gaza. While recording the destruction around him, he also tries to protect his wife and newborn child. The film premiered in Venice on September 5 and has been selected as Palestine’s entry for the Best International Feature Film category at the 99th Academy Awards.
Venice is also giving space to another major documentary connected to the Gaza story. NAZA, directed by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, has joined the Competition lineup. The film examines the systems behind Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and is produced by The Guardian, with James Wilson as producer and Jonathan Glazer as executive producer. Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor previously co-directed the Oscar-winning No Other Land.
Together, these developments place the Gaza Cinema Academy within a larger moment for Palestinian filmmaking at Venice. The academy’s importance, however, extends beyond the festival. By focusing on training, production and international connections, it seeks to give filmmakers in Gaza a structure through which they can keep learning, creating and sharing their work.
Its launch therefore marks more than the announcement of another film institution. It is an effort to build a lasting cinema ecosystem where education and storytelling can continue, even under extraordinary conditions. Venice provides the international platform for that ambition, but the real measure of the academy will be what it helps filmmakers create in Gaza in the years ahead.