Venice is an expert quarantine city.
The chronicles say that the city of the canals was the first there in 1347 to formalize the sanitary and hygienic control of those who passed through there.
So they closed their ports to suspicious ships and subjected the obstinate travelers to 40 days of isolation.
Now, since September 2, without going so far,
the Lido Festival celebrates its 77th edition with the spirit of the resistant.
And of the resigned.
All with a mask, all duly separated in the seats that must be reserved in advance and some with their noses still irritated by the rigorous PCR, the atmosphere that is breathed is more that of the duty fulfilled than that of the shared celebration.
It is not so much a question of contemplating the best as of attending what remains.
And so.
Let's say that
Alberto Barbera, director of all this
, the Mostra itself and the entire world have gone wrong.
Back in April, when the pandemic had us confined, each of the great cinephile appointments of the year took out their particular calculator: Cannes speculated on delaying their appointment and, when they realized the unappealable, they prepared to
distribute stamps to films like the one that deliver blessings
.
Beside him, Venice dreamed of the best possible festival: the reunion, the victory, the resurrected cinema.
Well, no.
The months have passed and the American industry is more stalled than ever before.
And the European, the same.
With the Oscars postponed to April
and the billboard near the void, the Mostra that now starts has nothing to do with the one in recent years that I saw as'
Gravity
','
La la land ',
'
The shape of water
','
Roma
'or'
Joker
'marked the path of everything to come.
Without the support of Netflix, which has retired from the race, and without the claim of the awards season, the Lido has had to reinvent itself in what it never wanted to be: minority, not exactly author.
The man proposes and the coronavirus disposes.
Cate Blanchett, president of the jury, upon her arrival in Venice this Tuesday.YARA NARDIREUTERS
So, few names to excite a red carpet by force excessively disinfected.
Perhaps the main attraction is, as it was last year,
Pedro Almodóvar
.
If in 2019 he went to collect the honorary Golden Lion, he does so to present '
The Human Voice'
or
'The human voice'
, his first work in English based on the one-act play written by Jean Cocteau in 1929.
Tilda Swinton ,
which will also be honored at the Mostra, is the protagonist of the long-awaited (although I only know for the times that it has been tempted) the first work of the manchego in the lingua franca of the planet.
Its projection is scheduled on Thursday the 3rd just started the festival and, given that the opening film is '
Lacci
' by Daniele Luchetti in a very internal Italian key,
everything indicates that the real opening is him.
Thus, directors such as
Abel Ferrara, Luca Guadagnino, Frederick Wiseman, Kiyoshi Kurosawa or Álex de la Iglesia
(who will present the pilot of his HBO series
'30 coins'
) alongside actors such as
Frances McDormand, Helen Mirren, Shia Labeouf , Andrew Garfield or Willem Dafoe
round out the brightest, by far the star, of a poster designed in an effortful attempt to turn
necessity into virtue
.
And for the very coffee growers.
Chloé Zhao
, the director of Chinese origin living in the United States and who was the director of the
not so silent '
hit
' '
The rider
', presents '
Nomaland
' as the film that wants to star in it all this year.
Produced by and starring a
McDormand
resurrected after her Oscar for
'Three commercials on the outskirts
', we are, or the film wants to be there, in the symptom and reflection of what is to come.
It is furiously independent cinema, furiously feminist, furiously furious.
And at this point, it is convenient to stop at the turn experienced by the Mostra pandemic through.
Barbera's resistance to programming female directors in the official section in past years, which earned its director all kinds of criticism and produced all kinds of strange excuses as collateral damage, is finally seen to be broken this year.
In this edition there are 8 filmmakers among the 18 films in the official competition
:
'Le sorelle Macaluso
' by Italian Emma Dante;
Mona Fastvold's
'
The World to Come
';
'
Amants
', by the French Nicole Garcia;
'
Miss Marx'
, by the Italian Susanna Nicchiarelli;
'
Never Gonna Snow Again
', by the Polish Magorzata Szumowska;
'
And Tomorrow the Entire World
', by the German Julia Von Heinz;
'Quo Vados, Aida?'
, of the Bosnian Jasmila Zbanic, and that of Zhao.
And so, and although you will see faces as well-known (or not so much) as those of Willem Dafoe (protagonist of the documentary '
Sportin' LIfe
'by Abel Ferrara), or
Jim Broadbent and Helen Mirren
(who look veteran in'
The Duke ',
the new from
Roger Michell
, the director also of
'Notting Hill
'), or
Andrew Garfield
(who appears in '
Mainstream
' by
Gia Coppola
, granddaughter of Francis Ford Coppola), or
Katherine Waterson
(
'Pure vice
') and
Vanessa Kirby
( '
The Crown'
) ... despite them, we said, what matters this year are the authors.
And here the payroll is as long as it is fair.
In addition to those mentioned, there are
Frederick Wiseman
, legend of the documentary, with his new work on institutions, '
City Hall'
;
the Japanese
Kiyoshi Kurosawa
, who attends the appointment with the historical film
'Wife of a Spy
';
Russian
Andrei Konchalovski
, author of such unexpected films as '
Tango and Cash
', which offers '
Dear Comrades
';
the Italian
Gianfranco Rossi
, winner of the Golden Lion of Venice for '
Sacro GRA
' and of the Golden Bear of Berlin for '
Fire in the Sea
', who premieres his new documentary shot in Syria, '
Notturno
'.
Nor should we lose sight of another of the notes of this Exhibition: its fixation and delivery to the
documentary
.
Ferrara and Wiseman have already appeared in this section.
But there is more.
'
Crazy, Not Insane
', by
Alex Gibney
(who won an Oscar in 2007 for '
Taxi to the Dark Side
') and '
Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams'
, where Italian
Luca Guadagnino
(who also presents the HBO series
' We Are Who We Are ')
pays tribute to Salvatore Ferragamo, the shoe designer who wore Marilyn Monroe, they are just two of the hottest on the show.
'
Greta
', by
Nathan Grossman
, about
Greta Thunberg
, and, instead of honor, '
Hopper / Welles
', the filming of a long interview by
Orson Welles with Dennis Hopper
during the filming of the cult and cursed film'
The Last Movie
', complete a menu without a doubt undeniable.
Then at the bottom, Filipino
Lav Diaz
, the French
Quentin Dupieux,
Italian
Alice Rohwacher ..
.
Barbera says that the cinema cannot afford to remain blocked.
He insists on the need to send a signal of optimism.
For now, the quarantine in the Lido lasts until September 12.
-
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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