THE 73rd VENICE FILM FESTIVAL
The Venice Film Festival is the most important event of Italian cinema that gathers in Venice, my favourite city, film directors, international movie stars and cinema lovers.
10 days of shows, celebrities walking down the red carpet, parties and gossip, as in the best tradition of the festival. And this year I will tell you all the news.
In this post you’ll find all the updates day by day, up to the awards that will be assigned, including the coveted Golden Lion.
The dates of the 73rd Venice Film Festival
The 73rdVenice Film Festival will be held from August 31st to September 10th, when the winners of the competition will be awarded.
The International Jury of the Festival
Sam Mendes will be the President of the International Jury of the Competition at the 73rdVenice Film Festival, which will assign the awards.
Sam Mendes is one of the most appreciated theatrical and film directors of recent years, who made a name of himself by directing several movies, including “American Beauty”, “Road to Perdition”, and two James Bond movies: “Skyfall” and “Spectre”.
The Golden Lions for Lifetime Achievement of the 73rd Venice Film Festival
Among the novelties of this edition, there will be the assignation of two Golden Lions for Lifetime Achievement, and not only one as in the past editions.
The first award will be given to a director or someone from the world of film production, and this year will be assigned to Polish film director Jerzy Skolimowsky; the second award will be given to an actor or an actress, and this year will be given to Jean-Paul Belmondo.
SEE ALSO: the photos of the most beautiful actresses in the history of Italian cinema.
The Pre-opening event (Tuesday August 30th 2016)
The Pre-opening event will be dedicated to the restored masterpiece by Luigi Comencini “Tutti a casa” (“Everybody go home”) (Italy/France 1960), to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of the film director (1916-2007).
The movie digitally restored by Filmauro and CSC-Cineteca Nazionale di Roma on the basis of the original negatives, will give new life to one of the masterpieces of the “commedia all’italiana” (“Italian-style comedy”), starring Alberto Sordi, Serge Reggiani, Carla Gravina, and Eduardo De Filippo, and which was winner at that time of two David di Donatello awards and one Nastro d’argento award.
The movie, blending comedy with drama, narrates the chaotic Italian situation after the armistice signed by Badoglio on September 8th 1943, when Italian soldiers were abandoned to their own destinies both by the King and Mussolini.
The complete line-up of the 73rd Venice International Film Festival – (28th july 2016, update)
Competition: The Bad Batch di Ana Lily Amirpour, Une vie di Stephane Brize, The Light Between Oceans di Derek Cianfrance, El ciudadano illustre di Mariano Cohn e Gaston Duprat, Spira Mirabilis di Massimo D’Anolfi e Martina Parenti, The woman who left di Lav Diaz, La region salvaje di Amat Esclalante, Nocturnal Animals di Tom Ford, Piuma di Roan Johnson, Rai (Paradise) di Andrei Konchalovsky, Brimstone di Martin Koolhoven, On the milky road di Emir Kusturica, Voyage of Time di Terrence Malick, El Cristo ciego di Christopher Murray, Frantz di Francois Ozon, Questi giorni di Giuseppe Piccioni, Arrival di Denis Villeneuve, Les beaux jours d’Aranjuez di Wim Wenders, Jackie di Pablo Larrain.
Out of Competition: The Young Pope (ep. 1 e 2) di Paolo Sorrentino, The Bleeder di Philippe Falardeau, The Magnificent Seven di Antoine Fuqua, Hacksaw Ridge di Mel Gibson, Planetarium di Rebecca Zlotowski, The Journey di Nick Hamm, A jamais di Benoit Jaquot, Gantz:O di Kawamura Yasushi, The age of Shadows di Kim Jee woon, Monte di Amir Naderi, Tommaso di Kim Rossi Stuart.
The complete line-up of the 73rd Venice International Film Festival on the official website – http://www.labiennale.org/en/cinema
Web Theatre for the Biennale
The films will be streamed simultaneously with the official presentations of the films on the Lido with a maximum capacity of 1400 seats for each screening.
WIM WENDER E GABRIELE MUCCINO (update of 1th SEptembre 2016)
La La Land by Damien Chapelle.
La La Land tells the story of Mia, an aspiring actress, and Sebastian, a dedicated jazz musician, who are struggling to make ends meet in a city known for crushing hopes and breaking hearts.
Director’s Statement (from 73rd Venice International Film Festival website).
With La La Land, I wanted to make a musical about artists and dreamers, and the struggle to balance those dreams with the demands of real life. I fell head over heels for musicals the first time I saw the films of Jacques Demy, and I haven’t looked back since. No genre moves me as much. Musicals may be fantastical, but no genre is more emotionally truthful, more capable of cutting through the muck and nailing what it actually feels like to dream, to fall in love, to be so overcome with joy or yearning or heartbreak or ecstasy that the grammar of ordinary movies no longer suffices.
Les beaux jours d’Aranjuez by Wim Wenders.
A beautiful summer day. A garden. A terrace. A woman and a man under the trees, with a soft summer wind. In the distance, in the vast plain, the silhouette of Paris.
A conversation begins: questions and answers between the woman and the man.
Its subtitle is A Summer Dialogue. Seldom has the nature of the difference between men and women been shown more clearly, and to what extent their aspirations, expectations and view of the past might diverge.
L’estate addosso by Gabriele Muccino.
Marco, who has just finished high school, is worried about his uncertain future. His graduation summer will, as the result of a series of unexpected and lucky coincidences, lead him to spend twenty days in San Francisco with friends.
When the time comes to say goodbye and go home, the four will have shared a unique, perhaps unrepeatable, experience of friendship, of growth and development that will stay with them forever.
The summer of Marco corresponds to a state of mind, one in which something within ourselves changes and will not be the same as before.
Tom Ford E Liev Schreiber (UPDATE OF 2nd SEPTEMBEr 2016)
Nocturnal Animals by Tom Ford.
From writer/director Tom Ford comes a haunting romantic thriller that explores the thin lines between love and cruelty, and revenge and redemption. Susan Morrow, a Los Angeles art dealer, lives a privileged yet unfulfilled life with her husband Hutton Morrow. One weekend, as Hutton departs on a business trip, Susan receives an unsolicited package left for her in her mailbox. It is a novel, Nocturnal Animals, written by her ex-husband Edward Sheffield, with whom she has had no contact for years. Edward’s note accompanying the manuscript encourages Susan to read the work and then to contact him during his visit to the city. Alone at night, in bed, Susan begins reading. The novel is dedicated to her…
…but its content is violent and devastating.
Director’s Statement (from 73rd Venice International Film Festival website).
Nocturnal Animals is a cautionary tale about coming to terms with the choices that we make as we move through life and of the consequences of our decisions. In an increasingly disposable culture where everything including our relationships can be so easily tossed away, this is a story of loyalty, dedication and love. It is a story of the isolation that we all feel, and of the importance of valuing the personal connections in life that sustain us.
Dawn of the Dead (1978) by George A. Romero.
At midnight on Friday September 2nd, in the Sala Giardino (Lido di Venezia), the world premiere screening will be held of the restored copy of George A. Romero’s masterpiece Dawn of the Dead – European Cut [Zombi, 1978] (USA-Italy, 115’), in the version edited and curated at that time by Dario Argento for the European market with music by Goblin.
The screening will be introduced with a presentation by Dario Argento himself, who was the producer of the film, and by Nicolas Winding Refn, a great admirer of Dawn of the Dead and supervisor of the restoration in high definition.
Liev Schreiber e Naomi Watts
Jude Law, Paolo Sorrentino, James Franco e Ozon (UPDATE OF 3rd SEPTEMBEr 2016)
The Young Pope (episodes I and II) by Paolo Sorrentino.
The Young Pope tells, in ten episodes, the story of Lenny Belardo, alias Pius XIII, the first American pope in history. Young and fascinating, cunning and ingenuous, ironic and pedantic, ancient and very modern, doubtful and resolute, sorrowful and ruthless, Pius XIII tries to cross the immensely long river of humanity’s solitude in order to find a God to give to humanity. And to himself.
Director’s Statement (from 73rd Venice International Film Festival website).
The interior duel between the great responsibilities of the head of the Catholic Church and the miseries of the simple man whom destiny (or the Holy Ghost) wanted as pope. Finally, how to manage and manipulate power on a daily basis in a State that has the renunciation of power and a disinterested love for your neighbor as its dogma and moral imperative. The Young Pope is all about that.
In Dubious Battle by James Franco.
In California apple country nine hundred migratory workers rise up against the landowners after getting paid a fraction of the wages they were promised. The group takes on a life of its own—stronger than its individual members and more frightening. Led by the doomed Jim Nolan, the strike is founded on his tragic idealism—on the “courage never to submit or yield.”
Director’s Statement (from 73rd Venice International Film Festival website).
In Dubious Battle was the lesser-known book of his unofficial “Dustbowl Trilogy,” which included Of Mice and Men, and The Grapes of Wrath. It is an incredible account of man’s struggle against himself, a topic so raw during the Great Depression, and still so topical today. It was a dream come true to bring his work to the screen.
Frantz by François Ozon.
In a small German town after World War I, Anna mourns daily at the grave of her fiancé Frantz, killed in battle in France. One day a young Frenchman, Adrien, also lays flowers at the grave. His presence so soon after the German defeat ignites passions.
Director’s Statement (from 73rd Venice International Film Festival website).
It was very important to me to tell this story from a German point of view, from the losing side, through the eyes of those who were humiliated by the Treaty of Versailles, so I could illustrate how Germany at that time was fertile ground for spreading nationalism.
El ciudadano ilustre and Mel Gibson (UPDATE OF 4th SEPTEMBER 2016)
El ciudadano ilustre by Mariano Cohn, Gastón Duprat.
Argentinian writer Daniel Mantovani has been living in Europe over the past three decades. He is renowned for winning the Nobel Prize in literature. His novels portray life in Salas, the small town where he was born and where he has not returned since he was very young. The local government of Salas invites him to receive the town’s most prestigious recognition: the Distinguished Citizen Medal. This trip presumes a triumphant return to the town where he was born, a trip to the past to meet again with friends, love stories, and landscapes of his youth; but above all a trip to the very heart of his literature, to his source of inspiration. The small-town warmth will disappear once the controversies start to grow, reaching a point of no return that will reveal two incompatible perspectives on the world.
Directors’ Statement
El Ciudadano Ilustre exposes various contemporary issues. One of them is the rejection of the external, critical perspective that the main character, a writer who has lived outside his country for decades, represents for his fellow country people and their nationalistic position. For this cosmopolitan writer, his hometown’s quiet lifestyle and its exaltation of the local customs imply a society that rejects any idea of progress. Added to this conflict is the sort of open wound in Argentina’s pride, for being a country with great writers but without any Nobel Prize winners in literature.
Hacksaw Ridge by Mel Gibson.
Hacksaw Ridge is the extraordinary true story of Desmond Doss who, in Okinawa during one of the bloodiest battle of WWII, saved 75 men without firing or carrying a gun. He was the only American soldier in World War II to fight on the front lines without a weapon, as he believed that while the war was justified, killing was nevertheless wrong. Doss was the first conscientious objector to ever earn the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Director’s Statement
When I heard the story of Desmond Doss, the first conscientious objector to receive the U.S. Medal of Honor, I was astounded by the extent of his sacrifice. Here was a man who, in the most pure, selfless, and almost unconscious way, repeatedly risked his own life to save the lives of his brothers. Desmond was a completely ordinary man who did extraordinary things. In a cinematic landscape overrun with fictional “superheroes,” I thought it was time to celebrate a real one.
Official awards (UPDATE OF 11TH SEPTEMBRE 2016)
INFO
The 73rd Venice Film Festival
31 august – 10 september, 2016
LINK
73. Mostra del Cinema di Venezia website
PICTURES
Pictures have been taken from the Internet and are in the public domain.