Shroud Bearing 60,000 Names of Gaza Victims Colours Locarno Film Festival

Around 100 people filled the festival area, unfurling a shroud bearing the names of 60,000 Gazans who have died since the war began two and a half years ago.

One of the organisers, Dr Michele Ghielmini of Swiss Healthcare Workers Against Genocide, said the participants were not affiliated with any political party. He also stressed that the action was not intended to disrupt the festival.

According to Ghielmini, the time and location of the demonstration had been agreed in advance with the Locarno Film Festival organisers and the police. The action was therefore designed as a peaceful demonstration that would not interfere with festival activities.

The shroud bearing 60,000 names of the dead was not being used for the first time in such an action. It had previously been displayed in Amsterdam and in front of the Swiss Parliament building in Bern.

Ghielmini explained that the organisers chose the Locarno Film Festival as a venue to raise the issue of Gaza once again because the festival brings together many people from different countries, including Swiss citizens from various regions. “This festival is an opportunity because many people are here, many people from all over the world, but also importantly, many people from Switzerland,” Ghielmini said, as quoted by Variety on Monday (10/8/2026).

He said the Swiss public did not show the same level of sensitivity towards the Swiss government’s actions on the Palestinian issue. In his view, the German-speaking regions of Switzerland tended to be less sensitive than the Italian- and French-speaking regions.

The presence of the Locarno Film Festival, Ghielmini continued, provided an opportunity to reach more people from the German-speaking regions of Switzerland. The festival also attracted more media from those regions.

“Thanks to this film festival, there are more people from the German-speaking regions of Switzerland in attendance. In addition, there is also a lot of press from the German-speaking regions of Switzerland covering it, so we felt this was the right moment to once again draw public attention to what has been and is still happening in Gaza,” he said.

Based on written material distributed to visitors, the demonstrators made a number of demands of the Swiss government. They asked the Swiss government to pressure Israel to open Gaza’s borders to aid organisations and the media.