There is both a lot and little going on on this Wednesday evening at the Lido.

A lot, because the film festival celebrates its opening live here: the audience, filmmakers, distributors and critics traveled there despite the pandemic.

And yet there is not much going on, if you compare the number of visitors with that of the past few years.

In addition, there are not too many tourists back in town who would otherwise spontaneously stray to the film festival to catch a glimpse of the red carpet.

The extent to which the elongated island in the Venetian lagoon suffered from the slump in tourism caused by the pandemic can already be seen from the small ferry port: the kiosks that were stocking newspapers from all over Europe and America here before Corona have reduced their range to postcards and neck pillows .

Maria Wiesner

Editor in the Society department at FAZ.NET.

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And other things are also different this year: The pine-lined street that leads down to the premiere palace has been closed by the police shortly before the festival area.

This time, however, the police not only check the visitors' luggage, but also their temperature and remind them to wear a mask and keep their distance.

Only those who have recovered, vaccinated or tested are allowed to go to the cinema, and half of the seats in the halls are locked.

Avoid crowds at all costs

Even those who had passed all the tests at the entrance and hoped to take a spontaneous look at the stars were left with only the live broadcast of the Italian broadcaster Rai, which played on a video screen in front of the festival palace. High partition walls screen the red carpet from prying eyes. Festival director Alberto Barbera wants to avoid crowds at all costs. Instead of the red carpet, you only see a couple of buckets with pink oleander, which is supposed to bring a little splash of color into the corona-related gray of the partition walls as a nice excuse.

On the opening evening, the stars are only shown for the international photographers and themselves.

But since Venice has secured a competition with Hollywood's biggest names, professionals are at work on the carpet.

Penélope Cruz - she plays the leading role in Pedro Almodóvar's film “Madres Paralelas”, which opened the festival - plays the role of the film diva and picked up Chanel for the gala.

She combines the dark blue, floor-length dress with bows and white ruffle accents with dramatic dark red lips and a lot of kohl - it would be almost too much of a good thing if every opportunity to dress up wasn't right in the second year of the pandemic.

Real luck thanks to Cannes

New Zealand director Jane Campion, who is back with “The Power of Dog” after a more than ten year film break, also chose a striking robe with Benedict Cumberbatch as the main actor. It is one of the fortunes of the Venetian Film Festival that the competition in Cannes strictly adhered to their rule "No streaming films in competition" in early summer, because Campion's film was produced by Netflix. Otherwise the director would certainly have traveled to France a few months earlier. Here she is wearing an outfit in plain black with glittering palm fronds entwined on the kimono sleeves - a subtle allusion to the "Golden Palm", which she won in 1993 with "Das Piano" as the first woman in Cannes. Campions Film is one of 21 competing in Venice for the Golden Lion.

A seven-person jury decides who gets it.

This year she is chaired by the South Korean director Bong Joon-ho, who two years ago won multiple awards for “Parasite” at the Oscars - and made a fan his main festival accessory in southern Italy.

At his side is this year's Oscar winner Chloe Zhao, whose socially critical road movie “Nomadland” also premiered in Venice a year ago - at that time Zhao couldn't travel to Europe, she has now made up for it.

The advantage of an empty Venice

Not only she was waiting to come to Venice.

Many filmmakers have postponed premieres until cinemas reopened.

And so it happens that some of the stars in Venice can be seen in several films - Oscar Isaac has three projects that he is presenting at the Lido, including the highly hyped remake of the science fiction epic “Dune”, which took place on this one Friday is shown for the first time.

The fans still have the option of looking for their stars directly in the cinema on the big screen.

Or you run into them spontaneously in the café on the Lido.

This is also an advantage if there are fewer visitors on the site: you can recognize yourself more quickly.