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A program which «strengthens the idea of cinema as an extraordinary tool for understanding reality». Alberto Barbera, director of the Venice Film Festival, reiterates this as he presents the 83rd edition on stage from 2 to 12 September.
Meanwhile there is the return of the ‘prodigal son’, namely Nanni Moretti, who is in competition with ‘It will happen tonight’. But it doesn’t end here, there are four other Italians in the running with him: Marco Bechis with ‘Ritorno a Buenos Aires’; Edoardo De Angelis with ‘The fire you carry inside’; ‘The Echo Chamber’ by Andrea Pallaoro and ‘L’estranea’ by Paolo Strippoli. In all five films, we are perfectly average, to which we add, to talk only about the main sections, the works of Orizzonti namely: ‘The Girl with the Leica’ by Alina Marrazzi; ‘Una storia’ by Anna Foglietta with Alba Rohrwacher; ‘The city of the living’ by Edoardo Gabbriellini and ‘The children of the monkey’ by Tommaso Landucci with Riccardo Scamarcio. Finally, three out of competition and all by authors. It is ‘God laughs’ by Giovanni Veronesi; ‘No Pain’ by Gianni Amelio and ‘Scherzetto’ by Mario Martone.
“It is an unexpected, surprising film, different from Moretti’s films or at least from the last ones – says the artistic director Alberto Barbera of ‘It will happen this note’ -. There is no explicit political dimension in this work. It is an intimate film, a love film, a story of a passion, a sentimental melodrama, but as it can be done by Moretti”.
There was a wide choice of Italian cinema this year, explains Barbera: “The fact is that we found ourselves faced with a partly unexpected situation. In the first months of the year there were practically no films ready or there were very few. So everyone complained about the absence of Italian films among the major international competitions, there were no films in Berlin, there were no films in Cannes and this seemed to be the prelude to the end of our cinema. Then everything changed.” He then says of Bechis and his ‘Return to Buenos Aires’ «the director returns to the infamous places of that bloody story told in Garage Olimpò with the story of a former internee who is called to testify at the trial against the former soldiers who kidnapped, tortured and enslaved him during the military dictatorship». In De Angelis’ film ‘The fire you carry inside’ from the novel of the same name by Antonio Franchino «there is an extraordinary Vanessa Scalera who embodies the portrait in a truly impressive way, both ruthless and comic, of a possessive and hostile mother, or a concentration of that Neapolitanness from which the children had tried to escape by emigrating to the north”. the help of three great performers: Luca Marinelli, Alicia Vikander and Susan Sarandon.” Finally Strippoli: “Even in ‘The Stranger’ there are obviously quite obvious horror elements, as heavy as ‘The Valley of Smiles’, but the film has much greater ambitions and is a great leap in maturity in every sense compared to his films of the past.”
In announcing Moretti’s presence in the competition, Barbera did not fail to point out that the Roman director had been missing from Venice since 1989, since ‘Palombella Rossa’. “Perhaps it is better not to evoke the reasons for this absence, but a long time has passed,” he said. In reality, this is what happened: at the time, many took it for granted that it would be selected in competition at the 46th Venice Film Festival, but instead the film was excluded from the official competition and presented only as a special event of the International Critics’ Week. A decision that caused endless controversy on Moretti’s part towards the Festival and film critics.
However, the step backwards regarding the presence of female authors in the competition is evident. Last year there were three, but this year, among the 20 titles in the competition, there will be only one director, the Danish-Egyptian May el-Toukhy with Woman Unknown. «It is the historic minimum of recent years» comments the director of the Festival, underlining that «this year the percentage of films made by women subjected to the fiction feature film selection was lower than usual (around 24%, last year it was almost 30%)». A decrease that he defines as “disturbing”.
However, the director insists on how «at the Mostra all the major contemporary problems are reflected or echoed in films that are not content with being simple news: wars, climate change, migration, family fractures and conflicts, growing social tensions, the legacy of the historical events of the past».
There is a convincing parade of international masters, also in competition (opened by Ink by Danny Boyle, dedicated to Murdoch): from Werner Herzog with Bucking Fastard starring Rooney and Kate Mara to Look Back by Hirokazu Kore-eda (also competing at Cannes this year), passing through Possible Love in which Lee Chang-Dong rereads a chapter of Kieslowski’s Decalogue. A good number of stars are announced: starting with the Golden Lions for Lifetime Achievement George Clooney and Ellen Burstyn, but also, among others, Oasis, for the documentary on their reunion Don’t Look Back in Anger by Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace; Russell Crowe for his concert/confessional film What love builds; Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem for Bunker by Florian Zeller. There are US authors like Casey Affleck with Company, but, as in Cannes, the absence of Hollywood blockbusters is confirmed: «They weren’t ready or they weren’t available», assures Barbera.