“Only monsters play God,” says capital on various ominous film posters along the coastal road towards Palazzo del Cinema, where the 82nd edition of the Film Festival of Venice started on Wednesday evening. It is the tagline For one of films at the festival this year that is most looking forward to: Guillermo del Toros Frankensteinwhich will premiere on Saturday. But “Monsters” are also an important common thread at the festival this year, festival director Alberto Barbera stated in advance in various interviews.
His festival has been associated in recent years with Glamor, Oscar winners and NetflixPremières – The Streaming Service has three films in the main competition. This year too, the list of Hollywood stars that steps on the water taxi to Lido is long and impressive. For example, the festival opens on Wednesday evening with the nostalgic, potential public favorite La Grazia from Oscar winner Paolo Sorrentino (La Grande Bellezza). On Friday evening Julia Roberts will be on the Venetian red carpet for the first time, together with opponents Andrew Garfield and Ayo Edebiri for Luca Guadagninos After The Hunt. A drama about generation conflicts and consent. On Saturday George Clooney and Adam Sandler make their appearance, they play in Noah Baumbachs Jay Kelly About a movie star with an identity crisis on a road trip with his manager. And those are just a few of the big names.
Protest
But Barbera knows that what happens in the rest of the world cannot be ignored while on the Lido one after the other Potential Oscark candidate is premiered and is discussed about who goes home with the Golden Lion. He pointed out after the presentation of his line-up that this year not only literal monsters can be seen at the festival, such as in Del Toro’s film, or in Netflix series Il Mostro – True Crime about a Florentine serial killer. The “real monsters of the past century” also appear in the selection, such as Putin or Gaddafi. In fiction film The Wizard of the Kremlin For example, Jude Law plays Vladimir Putin to power during his climb. In documentary My Father and Qaddafi Jihan K tries to get a picture of her suddenly disappeared father Mansur Rashid Kikhia. He was a human rights lawyer who served in Gaddafi’s brutal regime and after he left the government became a peaceful opposition leader. And then, according to Barbera, there are also films where “the monstrousness” of the war in Ukraine and Gaza is discussed.
These films probably do not prevent politically tinted protests from taking place during the festival. On Wednesday morning, activists again called for the Palazzo del Cinema a march on the Lido next Saturday. During the press conference where later in the day the jury of the main competition, led by director Alexander Payne, was presented, journalists fired one question after the other about the war in Gaza and about an open letter published last Saturday. In this, countless filmmakers asked the festival to “clearly condemn the constant genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing in Palestine by the Israeli government and army.” During the press conference, jury chairman Payne avoids spiky questions from journalists by saying that he “felt a bit unprepared”, he in Venice is “to talk and judge about cinema” and is convinced that his political views “in accordance [zijn] With many of yours ”.
Euthanasia and quinoa
There will of course be talked about films at Lido in the coming days. Such as about the opening film of Sorrentino, about a politician who does not behave monstrous, but very human. Certainly in comparison with the politicians who brought the director on the screen earlier. This time, regular Sorrentino actor Toni Servillo plays the fictional Italian President Mariano de Santis, who knows that he will soon have to leave the Quirinal Palace. His daughter quickly tries to have a number of crucial files completed, he would have to approve a euthanasia law and a pardon for two prisoners. But the melancholic, eternally doubting and all -expelling Catholic president is not yet ready to say goodbye to his position. And more than in the euthanasia law, he is interested in whom his deceased wife cheated forty years ago. Sorrentino is in shape, with a film that feels thorough Italian – in a joke about a light meal with quinoa that, according to the Santis, “best friend is only” the suggestion of food “, a Bulderlach went through the room with a lot of Italian press. The director again combines elegant lightness with melancholic musings. It provides a pleasant and hopeful opening.
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Also read: The imposing line-up of the Venice Film Festival: 9 films to look forward.