Share

January 27, 2020 "In Cinecittà they call me the workers' president, I will work hard". Roberto Cicutto, born in 1948, a life in cinema as a producer and since 2011 as CEO of Cinecittà Luce, is the new president of the Biennale, the manager that Minister Franceschini wanted for the difficult succession of Paolo Baratta forced 'by statute' to leave after 16 years, not consecutive but almost, at the helm of the Venetian institution.

A legacy not a little for the Venetian producer, entrepreneur, intellectual, cinema expert with excellent skills also in the field of art, who on the phone with Ansa stresses that he has attended the Biennale "for forty years" and says he is determined to "start studying already tomorrow", while ensuring a commitment that will start with continuity with the many innovations launched in recent years by Baratta. "I think that in both cinema and art, to cite the topics I have followed the most, the Biennale has gone very well in these years", he points out, "the choice not to be overlooked by advances in technology for example has awarded the Film Festival ".

Ideas for your mandate? "Too early - Cicutto scoffs politely - would be completely disrespectful of me and even superficial". The priorities at the moment are different: "I hope Baratta won't give us up, that with his great love for the Biennale he will give us a hand, help us". So much so, arrived together with the confirmations for the government guaranteed by the ballot box of Emilia Romagna, after months of controversy and attempts to make possible a further reconfirmation of the octogenarian ex-Milanese minister (the League has tabled an amendment to the financial was not admitted), the appointment of Cicutto seems to eventually satisfy everyone, even the mayor Brugnaro and the governor of Veneto Zaia who now say they are ready to work with the new president. Greetings also come from the ex-minister Francesco Rutelli, today president of ANICA, good luck to the other film associations, from the ANAC authors to the APA audiovisual producers. The director of the new museum of art in Mestre, the M9, applauds, and Italy Viva welcomes politics, with the group leader in the chamber, Maria Elena Boschi, and Michele Anzaldi.

Baratta, after thanking Minister Franceschini who had already once approved an ad hoc decree to reconfirm him and who has spent himself in recent months, is the first to wish his successor, "Long live the Biennale!", he writes with consummate understatement before closing in a respectful silence. Local newspapers today remember its successes, the battles won to bring the Biennale out of its enclosure, to make it conquer new spaces, from the Arsenale to the Artillery, from the Isolotto to the Tese and the Gaggiandre, adding a piece every year or a country and bringing the Biennale to the world by literally increasing the numbers of visitors (the last one had 600 thousand admissions compared to 243 thousand in 2001). Art and architecture, but also cinema, which has been guaranteed new spaces. And then the theater, dance, music. The work for young people, to whom the College is dedicated. All with a constant commitment to the accounts, something that Baratta wanted to underline in the last Board of Directors chaired a few weeks ago in the beautiful headquarters of 'Ca Giustinian, overlooking the Grand Canal: "For the future, a consistent supply of economic reserves and continuity is ensured of the activity, in full respect of the spirit and the letter of the statute ". The challenge now changes hands.