Venice 2023: Favino and the (all Italian) heroes on Wednesday 30

Ta-ta-ta-ta! We leave (indeed: we set sail…). AND Commander Of Edward De Angelis the opening film of the 80th Venice International Film Festival (actually born in 1932, but some editions were skipped). By now it is known: that place had already been assigned to Challengers by Luca Guadagnino, starring Zendaya, but the strike of American screenwriters and actors prompted the producers to withdraw it, waiting for a more propitious moment.

Welcome, Pierfrancesco, in Commander

Then welcome Pierfrancesco Favino (in the cast with Massimiliano Rossi, Johan Heldenbergh and Silvia D’Amico) as Salvatore Todaro, known (also) for the phrase: «A German commander does not have, like me, two thousand years of civilization on his shoulders». At the helm of the Cappellini submarine of the Regia Marina, in October 1940, the soldier suddenly found himself – in the Atlantic – under fire from a merchant ship (Belgian, loaded with British war material). But he prevailed, and it is here that he acted as a worthy person: he decided to save the 26 Belgian castaways condemned to drown in the ocean, disembarking them in the nearest safe port, as required by the law of the sea.

Veronesi’s pen

«The man driving a Roman trireme two thousand years ago is the same man who commands a submarine in the middle of the world war. That man is called Salvatore and he is strong. He sinks the iron of the enemy ships without fear and without mercy» explains the director, who wrote the screenplay with Sandro Veronesi. «But the helpless enemy is no longer an enemy, he is just another man and so he saves him. Because the truly strong human being is the one capable of reaching out to the weak. Salvatore knows the eternal laws that govern the sky and the sea and knows that they are superior to any other law. Whoever saves one man saves humanity.”

Favino for Venice 80 splits in two: it will be in competition in Slowly by Stefano Sollima.

Any reference…

Any reference to people or things (read: the attitude of a certain political class and certain public opinion) does not seem purely coincidental… Having given precisely to Commander the opening night honor then maybe not a patriotic move, on the contrary: is a reference to mercy which arrives a few days after that of President Mattarella and Pope Francis and which will be reaffirmed during this Venice Film Festival by two other films in competition, I captain by Matteo Garrone and by The Green Border by Agnieszka Holland. May the best man win, but above all the message wins. Which affects us all.

Farewell to Cuba

And an equally strong message comes from Tommaso Santambrogio, a thirty-one year old Milanese former collaborator of cult directors such as Werner Herzog and Lav Diaz. His The oceans are the real continentsselected as opening of the Horizons section – reserved for dedicated to “films representative of new aesthetic and expressive tendencies of cinema world” – takes us to a rain-swept Cuba and the simple everyday life of young Alex and Edith, old Milagros and little Frank and Alain, with the specter of separation…

“The first time that areor been on the island» explains Santamborgio «I was eight. I remember that, as I approached the airport controls, I witnessed a desperate and inseparable embrace – with deep sobs and tears – between a father and a daughter, who evidently had found a way to leave the place and would never return. . It was a poignant and unfair farewell as terribly common in Cuban society, which today is going through the most serious migration crisis in its history (nearly 8 percent of the population left the country in the last year and a half alone and the flow is constantly growing). “It all started with this image.”

Liliana Cavani gold

The first of the two Golden Lions (the second will go to Hong Kong’s Tony Leung, the protagonist of In the Mood for Loveto be clear) speaks Italian: the award winner is Liliana Cavaniveteran of the show (presented here in 1965 Philippe Pétain: Trial at Vichyin 1966 Francis of Assisiin 1968 Galileoin 1969 The cannibalsi, in 2002 Ripley’s game and in 2012 Poor Clares).

«One of the most emblematic protagonists of the new Italian cinema of the 1960s, with a work that later spanned over sixty years of entertainment history, Liliana Cavani she is a versatile artist capable of frequenting television, theater and opera with the same unconventional spirit and the same intellectual restlessness that have made her films famous» is the motivation of the director of the Venice Film Festival. «Her thinking has always been nonconformist, free from ideological preconceptions and free from conditioning of any kind, moved by the urgency of the continuous search for a truth hidden in the most hidden and mysterious parts of the human soul, up to the borders of spirituality» .

The order of time

As proof of her inexhaustible creative vitality, the director presents her new film, The order of time, inspired by the homonymous essay by Carlo Rovelli. From the rich cast (Italian, plus Ksenia Rappoport): Alessandro Gassmann, Edoardo Leo, Claudia Gerini. The plot? A group of old friends meets in a seaside villa to celebrate a birthday…
“Life is a kind of ‘journey’ – a disturbing journey – that we humans make in the universe according to a program that we have not chosen but which happens, just as everything happens, according to the ‘order of time'” says Cavani.

Bersagliera forever

And the pre-opening of Venice 2023 was dedicated to one of our (few) divas: Gina Lollobrigida, who disappeared in January. Were screened, both in the restored version, The provincial by Mario Soldati (1953) and Portrait of Gina by Orson Welles, filmed in 1958. A gem. «In reality it is absolutely not a documentary» the director specified «rather an essay, a personal essay. It doesn’t try to be factual but just not to tell lies, in the diary tradition. They are my reflections on a given subject, Lollobrigida, and not on what he really is».

Let the party begin.

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