With the usual dose of expected films, but without the biggest stars, the jubilee 80th year of the Venice festival began this Wednesday evening. Due to the strike of Hollywood screenwriters and actors, significantly fewer famous faces walked the red carpet. The director Luca Guadagnino, the filmmakers Jane Campion and Alice Diop, as well as politicians Italian Transport Minister Matteo Salvini and former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi arrived.
Despite the adverse situation, art director Albert Barber nevertheless managed to secure some of the most anticipated pictures of the year. Fears that major studios would postpone their projects and the Venice festival would have nothing to screen were thus not fulfilled. “Obviously some people couldn’t come in the end, but otherwise it turned out well. When the Hollywood strike started, there was a possibility that we wouldn’t be able to release a single American film,” says Barbera.
Hollywood actors are advised by their unions not to help promote major studio films during these months. Screenwriters and actors are on strike against them. They ask them for more money or guarantees that their work will not be cannibalized by artificial intelligence. “The basic idea of the strike is that the work of art is valuable in itself, that it is not just manufactured ‘content’, as they say in Hollywood today,” sums up director and chairman of the Venice competition jury Damien Chazelle.
He presented the musical La La Land in Venice years ago, which dominated the American Oscars the following year. And it was far from an isolated case. 8 of the 11 last winners of the Oscar for directing presented their films at the Venice festival, which will therefore also be closely watched by Hollywood insiders this year.
The audience will see new films by directors David Fincher, Sofia Coppola, Agnieszka Holland, Jorgos Lanthimos, Michael Mann and Bradley Cooper. All are competing for the main Golden Lion prize. As the opening film, the organizers chose a drama about the Second World War called Comandante, which was filmed by the forty-four-year-old Italian Edoardo De Angelis. The festival will run until next Saturday, September 9, when the winners will be announced at the closing ceremony.
Czech footprint
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised if David Fincher, Bradley Cooper or Sofia Coppola get into the next Oscar nominations,” says the artistic director of the festival program.
On it, Fincher will present the psychological thriller Killer starring Michael Fassbender. Cooper directed and starred in Maestro, a biopic about the conductor Leonard Bernstein. Sofia Coppola then brings Priscilla, a drama about the fate of the first wife of singer Elvis Presley. She was portrayed by the American Cailee Spaeny.
Agnieszka Holland will present Hranice. Set on the Polish-Belarusian border, this drama tells the story of a psychologist who gives up her comfortable life to start helping refugees. The Czech State Cinematography Fund contributed four million crowns to the creation of the project, it was produced by Šárka Cimbalová from Marlene Film Production and Czech Television.
Other expected titles of the Venice festival include Michael Mann’s new film called Ferrari. In it, Adam Driver plays the car racer and later the founder of the car company Enzo Ferrari, his wife was portrayed by Penélope Cruz.
This picture was not produced by any of the major Hollywood studios. Thanks to this, the actors received an exemption from the American unions and can participate in the Venice festival. Nevertheless, neither Adam Driver nor Penélope Cruz appeared on the red carpet on Wednesday and it is possible that they will not visit the festival at all in solidarity with the strikers.
On the other hand, the organizers expect the arrival of actress Jessica Chastain, who acts in the new film Memory by Mexican director Michel Franco, or Mads Mikkelsen in the next few days. He plays in the drama The Promised Land by the Danish creator Nikolaj Arcel.
Trailer from the film Maestro about the life of Leonard Bernstein, which premieres in Venice. It will be available on Netflix from December 20. | Video: Netflix
Allen or Polanski
The Venice festival will also present the latest works of directors Woody Allen, Luc Besson and Roman Polanski, whose names have come to the fore in recent years in connection with the #MeToo wave. Each has faced a different type of accusation, all have a difficult position in American show business at the moment.
Besson, who is competing with the new film Dogman, was cleared by police in June of a 2018 allegation that he raped an actress. Woody Allen will present his first film made in French called Coup de chance out of competition. Roman Polanski will then present the film The Palace, starring Mickey Rourke, John Cleese and Fanny Ardant. It takes place on New Year’s Eve 1999 in a Swiss hotel.
“Besson was recently fully acquitted of all charges. Woody Allen was investigated twice in the late 1990s and acquitted,” reminds the artistic director of the Barbera festival. In 1992, during the breakup, Woody Allen was accused by his partner of allegedly abusing their adopted daughter. The filmmaker denied guilt and was never charged.
“In the case of Roman Polanski, it’s a paradox. It happened decades ago. Polanski confessed. He asked for forgiveness. His victim forgave him and begged not to bring the matter to light again. I see no reason to kick him again.” argues Barbera.
Roman Polanski confessed a long time ago that he slept with a thirteen-year-old girl in 1977. He later fled the United States because of this, where sex with minors is considered rape. The director insists that it was voluntary intercourse. The victim forgave him in several interviews and, on the contrary, accused the media and the court of “causing more harm than Polanski” to her and her family.
“The history of art is full of criminals who created unique works. So why can’t we invite Polanski? He is one of the great masters who are still filming,” argues Alberto Barbera now.
Apart from the competition, the Venice festival will also present The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, which is the last film of the recently deceased American director William Friedkin. He died in early August at the age of 87.
The festival is part of the Venice Biennale. Its president, Roberto Cicutto, believes that the absence of overseas film stars will not deter viewers from visiting the city. Ticket sales so far indicate the same interest as last year, when approximately 56,000 tickets were sold.
