The "miracle" of the Venice Film Festival 2020: very good films and hope

View of the Cinema Palace, one of the key (and very protected) places of the 77th Venice Film Festival between September 2 and 12, 2020 © Siegfried Forster / RFI

Text by: Siegfried Forster Follow

8 min

"Il miracolo", enthusiastically Cate Blanchett, once arrived at the Lido.

And the miracle took place.

The Venice Film Festival 2020 was held, with very good films, many accredited persons and without any declared Covid-19 case.

Thus, the Venice Film Festival successfully goes down in history as the first major international cinema festival receiving the public since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

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This Saturday, September 12, the jury chaired by Australian star Cate Blanchett will award the Golden Lions for the 2020 edition. This year, the organizers deserve a special prize for their courage for having believed in this festival and for having convinced the world of cinema to realize this dream together.

Because each festival-goer we met sang the same refrain: “ 

 "

You had to be motivated to go to Venice: conquer the global ambient fear, fill in the health files, undergo border controls, then go through the

of the Mostra campus, equipped with thermal cameras for taking temperature, controls of bag.

Without forgetting the increased surveillance concerning the wearing of masks inside cinemas where everyone had to reserve their numbered place online for maximum traceability.

And without forgetting those who arrived from a country outside the Schengen area, with a compulsory Covid-19 test.

Among the festival-goers from blacklisted countries, some even made the transit

a third country to return to Italy.

"

" 

 " announced, relieved, on the evening of Friday, September 11, the press service of the Biennale.

Instead of the 12,000 accredited in normal times, 5,000 cinema professionals came to Venice, despite the coronavirus.

1,500 journalists covered the festival, including 450 from foreign countries and 200 television crews.

And halfway through the festival, 20,000 tickets were sold, up from 42,000 the previous year.

Thanks to drastic precautions, the Mostra has managed to set up a very relaxed atmosphere, especially since, outside the festival area, and unlike the rest of Venice, in the streets of the small island of Lido, no one wears mask.

The absence of crowds, parties and meeting points has made it possible to respect social distance everywhere, but also prevented spontaneous discussions, improbable or controversial meetings, which in normal times represents the salt of each festival.

The long-awaited big screen experience was indeed present, very good films too, and that from all over the world.

The refusal of American studios and Netflix to send films to the Mostra changed the character of the event.

On the other hand, everyone having seen all the films of the competition should come to the same conclusion: the festival had to give up the glitter of Hollywood, the buyers, producers and distributors supercharged, but not the quality of the works presented.

A less commercial Mostra

Like a Venice emptied of its liners and hordes of tourists, releasing an irresistible poetry, the Mostra was less commercial, but as demanding as usual.

Coronavirus requires, the parade of stars on the red carpet was separated from the public, reduced to its bare minimum: the taking of images by accredited photographers.

The absence of American blockbusters has changed that.

Instead of turning into a launching pad for the Oscars, the Mostra opened up cinematic horizons.

Instead of the latest Hollywood production

, 38-year-old

Chinese-American Chloé Zhao (

) has wonderfully represented the United States.

is a road movie about a special category of the abandoned of American society: the new nomads.

Oscar-winning actress Frances McDormand plays Fern, first a widow, then fired.

She is one of those homeless people living in a DIY van and surviving on "bullshitjobs" or a few dollars in retirement.

Tragic stories resonate, breathtaking landscapes pass by.

A new community is being built, without a tearful note, with a lot of humility and introspection.

A poetic and unexpected portrait of the new pioneers of poverty.

"

Michel Franco's

shocking film

us into an ultra-violent class struggle.

The beginning is somewhat reminiscent of

, but the Mexican director is not limited to a dystopian story at the family level.

It extends disaster, violence and despair to an entire country.

The new order brought about by a popular revolt will also be unjust and violent, but more totalitarian.

Also serious candidate for the Golden Lion: Jasmila Žbanić, 45, with

.

The Bosnian director, Golden Bear at the 2006 Berlinale for

, forces us to watch and relive helplessly the massacre of 8,000 Bosnian men and adolescents in Srebrenica in July 1995. How the Serbian army, under the command of the General Rakto Mladić, quietly pursues his strategy of "ethnic cleansing" under the eyes of United Nations troops.

It was at this precise moment that Europe had lost its honor by allowing a crime against humanity to be carried out in Europe itself, in a region declared a secure zone by the United Nations.

To achieve total immersion, Žbanić adopts the point of view of Aïda, a former teacher converted into a translator for the United Nations.

We can therefore observe both sides at the same time: the position of the cynical and bloodthirsty leader of Serbian soldiers, on the other side the resigned and powerless military leader of a Dutch contingent of UNPROFOR (the United Nations protection force) .

Eight films of women and a lot of amazing roles for actresses

With her impressive embodiment of strength and finesse in the tragic role of the Bosnian people, Serbian actress Jasna Đuričić is one of the favorites for the award for best female performance.

Another contender for the interpretation prize, British actress Vanessa Kirby.

In

, a story personally lived by the Hungarian Kornél Mundruczó (

) and his wife Kata Wéber, screenwriter of the film, she gives substance to a half-hour sequence shot of a home birth for then face the greatest tragedy of his life ... In

, Kirby embodies with the same intensity, but with a more subtle register and in another era a woman married to a dull and terribly religious man.

In the deep America of the XIXth century, she falls in love with a woman farmer and the two groups will try to free themselves to build the world to come.

Aditya Modak, "

For the price of male interpretation, Aditya Modak, the actor-musician of the puzzling

wins

.

With his extraordinary film fresco on a relationship between a master and his student wishing to dedicate his life to becoming an Indian classical singer, the Indian director Chaitanya Tamhane offers Modak a role of rare intensity and a breathtaking or even very daring evolution.

Located in today's city of Mumbai, the story told is both a huge tribute to the heritage of Indian classical music and at the same time a questioning of the weight of tradition and authority. generated by the transmission.

With incredible credibility, Modak embodies this tension between the sacred spirit and the unbearable demand, between ragas and rage, between divine music and masturbation at home.

"

In the parallel section Orizzonti, a special mention in

of the Palestinian brothers Tarzan and Arab Nasser for a moment of extraordinary poetry, but also to the Syrian actor Yahya Mahayni of

, of the Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania, giving body and soul to his role.

There is also

, our favorite of this edition, a cinematographic and musical forest fire by Moroccan filmmaker Ismaël El Iraki.

Not to mention the breathtaking staging by Franco-Ivorian director Philippe Lacôte, innovative and ambitious cinematographic writing, with an insane story set in one of the most overcrowded prisons in West Africa, Maca.

Political fable, the very “griot” story of

advances through a power struggle, but above all through a story to be told all night long, in fusion with songs, dances, colors, an African opera, a symphony cinematographic.

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