80th Venice International Film Festival
The time has finally come for this year’s Venice Film Festival which will take place at Palazzo del Cinema and Palazzo del Casinò in Venezia Lido from August 30th to September 9th.
Exceeding the big international kermesses such as the Academy Award, the Cannes Festival, the Berlin International Film Festival, and the American Sundance Film Festival, the Biennale Cinema is the oldest film festival in the world and it is considered the most prestigious and cultural in the film industry.
Other than celebrating great films and promoting new talents, the Venice competition remembers and celebrates actors, actresses, and directors who contributed to make the history of cinema. Indeed, before the actual start of this 2023 Festival, on the 29th of August, a day will be dedicated to the great Italian actress Gina Lollobrigida, who recently passed, by showing two masterpieces: Portrait of Gina (1958) by Orson Welles and La provinciale (1953) by Mario Soldati.
This year’s edition will also mark the 80th anniversary since its creation in 1932. At first, the festival was not an actual competition and was promoted as an educational and artistic event; it took place on the terrace of the Hotel Excelsior on the Lido and it was followed by a grand ball. By 1935 it acquired great popularity and became a regular event. After a setback in the forties, due to the war, the Film Festival saw its rise in the fifties when made the world know some of the greatest Italian and French directors such as Fellini, Antonini, Bertolucci, Pasolini, as well as Renoir, Clouzat, Bresson, Malle, to name a few. The Venetian event was also looked up for the incredible line-up of artists and filmmakers from around the globe, since 1987.
The 80th Venetian International Film Festival will be opening with the screening of Comandante by Edoardo de Angelis, starring Pierfrancesco Favino as the commander of the submarine Cappellini of the Italian Royal Navy in the 1940s, whose action will go down in history.
For sure there is a lot of anticipation as some of this year’s works seem very promising. Some notable mentions are The Killer by David Fincher, who is making his return after 1999’s Fight Club, a noir starring Michael Fassbender; Origin by Oscar-nominated Ava Duvernay, the first ever African American to compete at the festival; Bradley Cooper is also coming back with Maestro after the enormous success as a directorial debut with A Star is Born in 2018. The Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos will present a gender-swap version of Frankenstein, played by Emma Stone, in his Poor Things; Adam Driver will once again play an Italian in the new Michael Mann movie, Ferrari, which depicts the life of pilot and entrepreneur Enzo Ferrari. Last but not least, the Japanese maestro Ryusuke Hamaguchi, after two Oscar winnings, will present Evil Does not Exist while Sofia Coppola will tell the story of Elvis Presley’s widow, Priscilla, adapted from Priscilla Presley’s 1985 book Elvis and Me.
If you want to be updated and know all about the event, visit the official website.
The aim of the Festival is to raise awareness and promote international cinema in all its forms as art, entertainment, and as an industry, in a spirit of freedom and dialogue. [La Biennale di Venezia]
The 80th Venice International Film Festival is an extraordinary event not to miss, especially for film aficionados, where actors, actresses, directors, and all entourage of filmmaking can meet and exchange ideas, influence one another, and relive the history of the Biennale and the Cinema itself. Let yourself be enchanted by the Venetian city where great artists such as Scorsese, Almodovar, and Moretti rose to stardom.
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