ATTENDEES OF THE FIRST VENICE FILM FESTIVAL – PHOTO
1932: the public of the first Venice International Film Festival at the Chez Vous at the Hotel Excelsior, in the garden of the Fontane Luminose at the Lido di Venezia. The first film to be screened in the history of the Venice Film Festival, which appeared on the screen at 9:15 pm on August 6th 1932, was Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Rouben Mamoulian. Though it was not yet a competition, the Venice Film Festival presented important titles that would then become classics in the history of cinema such as It happened one night by Frank Capra, Grand Hotel by Edmund Goulding, The Champ by King Vidor, Frankenstein by James Whale, Zemlja (Earth) by Aleksandr Dovzenko, Gli uomini che mascalzoni… (What Scoundrels Men Are!) by Mario Camerini, A nous la liberté by René Clair. The major stars of the era appeared on the screen, from Greta Garbo to Clark Gable, from Norma Shearer to James Cagney, from John Barrymore to Joan Crawford, to the Italian superstar Vittorio De Sica.
DANCING AT NIGHT AT THE TABARIN AT THE EXCELSIOR – PHOTO
Dancing at night at the Tabarin at the Excelsior, in 1934: starting with the second edition, the Venice Film Festival becomes a competition. The programme also features Everybody’s Woman by Max Ophüls, It Happened One Night by Frank Capra and Little Women by George Cukor.
III Esposizione internazionale d’arte cinematografica (1935)
Count Volpi di Misurata, president of the Biennale, confers the awards: the Coppa del Duce for the two Best Films (the Golden Lion did not exist yet) go to Casta Diva and Anna Karenina, the Istituto Nazionale Luce wins the Coppa della Biennale for Best Italian Documentary for Riscatto, “inspired by one of the most glorious Fascist endeavours, the redemption of the Agro”, says the announcer.
ISA MIRANDA IN VENICE – PHOTO
Isa Miranda, just barely twenty-six, in Venice in 1935 as the star of Passaporto rosso by Guido Brignone: at her right is her husband Alfredo Guarini. In 1935 the Venice Film Festival becomes a yearly event and the prize for best actor and actress takes the name that it has maintained to this day: Coppa Volpi.
IV Mostra internazionale d’arte cinematografica (1936)
In the film clip from the Luce Archives, summer resort images of the Lido and the description of the awards that year: “The Coppa del Duce for Best Foreign Film was won by Der Kaiser of California (The Kaiser of California), produced by Trenker, and the Coppa del Duce for Best Italian Film was won by Squadrone bianco (The White Squadron), produced by Roma Film. The Coppa Volpi for Best Actor was awarded to Paul Muni for The Story of Louis Pasteur. The Istituto Luce with Il cammino degli Eroi won the Coppa del Partito for best political and social film and the award from the National Institute for Educational Cinema for best scientific film”.
PALAZZO DEL CINEMA – PHOTO
1937: the Venice Film Festival had grown in success and attendees, and left the terrace of the Excelsior Hotel heading to the new Palazzo del Cinema, designed in a modernist style by engineer Luigi Quagliata and built in a record-breaking time. It is still today, apart from the 1940 to 1948 editions, the main facility of the Festival.
Laurie Anderson has been named to one of three international juries of the 73rd Venice International Film Festival, taking place August 31–September 10, 2016. She will join the jury for the Venezia 73 competition presided over by director Sam Mendes. Also on the jury are actresses Gemma Arterton, Nina Hoss, Chiara Mastroianni, and Zhao Wei; directors Joshua Oppenheimer and Lorenzo Vigas; and writer Giancarlo De Cataldo. Laurie Anderson’s new film, Heart of a Dog, screened in competition in Venice in 2015. The film will be shown in cinemas in Italy on September 13 and 14; details at nexodigital.it.
The jury will award the following official prizes to the feature films in competition: Golden Lion for Best Film; Silver Lion – Grand Jury Prize; Silver Lion for Best Director; Coppa Volpi for Best Actor; Coppa Volpi for Best Actress; “Marcello Mastroianni” Award for Best New Young Actor or Actress; Award for Best Screenplay; and the Special Jury Prize.
The 73rd Venice International Film Festival is led by Alberto Barbera and organized by the Biennale di Venezia chaired by Paolo Baratta. For additional details, visit labiennale.org.
Because of the war, few countries participated in the 1940, 1941 and 1942 Festivals, not taken into consideration later on, with the dominating presence of the members of the Alliance. Following the war pause, the Festival was held again in 1946 with screenings at Cinema San Marco (the Palazzo del Cinema had been requisitioned by the Allies).
In 1946, in view of an agreement with Cannes, which had held its first festival that year in the spring, a simple transitory festival was organized in September. The 1947 Festival was held in the splendid setting of the courtyard of the Ducal Palace, with a record audience of 90,000. It was one of the best festivals and saw the return of the USSR and the new “popular democracies” including Czechoslovakia, which won first prize for Siréna by Karel Stekly. That year the international jury was reinstated to assign the International Grand Prix of Venice. Up until 1948 the director was Elio Zorzi, a Venetian.
Proceedings were transferred permanently back to the Palazzo del Cinema on the Lido in 1949, and the Golden Lion of St. Mark introduced for best film.
During the Fifties the Festival experienced a period of international expansion, with the affirmation of new types of film (Japanese, Indian), and the arrival of leading directors and film stars. The Festival director’s chair was occupied by Antonio Petrucci (from 1949 to 1953), Ottavio Croze (1954 and 1955), Floris Ammannati (from 1956 to 1959) and Emilio Lonero in 1960.
Over the years the Festival has had a noteworthy influence on the history of world cinema. Japanese cinema has become well known in the West mostly thanks to the Golden Lion awarded to Akira Kurosawa’s Rashômon in 1951, and successively through the Silver Lions won by Ugetsu Monogatari (1953) and Sanshô Dayû (1954) by Kenji Mizoguchi, not to mention the presence of films such as Biruma no Tategoto (1956) by Kon Ichikawa. It was the same case for Indian film, Golden Lion in 1957 to Satyajit Ray’s Aparajito. Eastern European cinema was brought to world attention partly through the Grand Prix awarded to the film Siréna (1947) by Karel Stekly (Czechoslovakia), and later thanks to the presence of emerging filmmakers such as Andrzey Waida (Popiól i diament, 1959).
After the first neo-realist films were shown at the Festival (Paisà by Roberto Rossellini and Il sole sorge ancora by Aldo Vergano in 1946, La terra trema by Luchino Visconti in 1948), a number of foremost Italian figures were recognised as leading talents in the ’50s and ’60s: Fellini, Antonioni, Rosi, Olmi, Bertolucci, Pasolini, Vancini, De Seta, and Zurlini. The fact that Luchino Visconti did not receive the Golden Lion for Senso in 1954 nor for Rocco e i suoi fratelli in 1960 led to heated debate. Visconti was to be awarded the top prize in 1964 for Vaghe stelle dell’Orsa.
French cinema marked decisive steps in the Festival history, with the presence of directors such as Jean Renoir (The Southerner, 1946), Henri-Georges Clouzot (Manon, 1949), Robert Bresson (Journal d’un curé de campagne, 1951), Marcel Carnè (Theresa Raquin, 1953), Louis Malle (Les amants, 1958), Alain Resnais (L’année dernière à Marienbad, 1961) and Jean-Luc Godard (Vivre sa vie, 1962; La chinoise, 1967).
Great figures in world cinema received awards with significant works: Carl Theodor Dreyer (Ordet, 1955), emergent Andrej Tarkovskj (Ivan’s Childhood, Golden Lion in 1962), Luis Buñuel (Belle de jour, 1967), Ingmar Bergman (The Face/The Magician, 1959), who had first come to the Lido in 1948 as an unknown figure with Musik i mörker.
Two Nepali films have been selected for the 73rd Venice International Film Festival. Deepak Rauniyar’s feature length film ‘White Sun’ and ‘Dadyaa’, a short film directed by Pooja Gurung and Bibhusan Basnet, will represent Nepal in Venice this year. The Venice Film Festival is one of the oldest and major international film festivals of the world.
This is the second consecutive year that Nepali films are represented at the festival. Min Bahadur Bham’s ‘Kalo Pothi’ had its world premiere there last year.
Both Nepali films will compete in the ‘Orizzonti’ (Horizons) section, which falls under the festival’s “official selection” line-up. Bham’s ‘Kalo Pothi’ was screened under the ‘International Critics’ Week’, an autonomous section separately organized by Italy’s critics’ association.
Set during the Maoist Insurgency, the 87 minute long ‘White Sun’ tells the story of two brothers with conflicting ideologies. The protagonist Chandra returns home after a decade, for his father’s final rites. The course of his journey is complicated by the harsh reality of his village.
The film stars Dayahang Rai, Asha Magrati, Rabindra Singh Baniya, Sumi Malla and Amrit Pariyar. “Getting selected for Venice will bring Nepali movies one step forward in the international arena,” Rauniyar said. “I believe this will not only promote Nepali films but Nepal as well.”
A conversation between a former guerilla and a soldier that Rauniyar witnessed eight years ago was the genesis of the movie. “I made this film to portray Nepal after the civil war and the discourse that has since followed,” he added.
‘White Sun’ has been backed by producers from USA, Netherlands and Qatar. Rauniyar’s debut feature film ‘Highway’ was screened at the 62nd Berlin Film Festival in 2012.
Bibushan and Pooja’s second short film ‘Dadyaa’ is shot in Sinja valley, Jumla. Their first short film ‘The Contagious Apparition of Dambarey Dendrite’ had a successful run in international film festivals.
‘Dadyaa’ depicts the struggles of an old couple spending an isolated life in remote Jumla. It has a runtime of 17 minutes. “Our selection in Venice shows that international audience is starting to show interest in Nepal,” said Pooja.
The eleven day long festival will start from August 31. The organizer said that the ‘Orizzonti’ section will celebrate the latest aesthetic and expressive trend in international cinema. It is a competitive section.
The first “Esposizione d’Arte Cinematografica” came into being in 1932 as part of the 18th Venice Biennale (from 6 July to 21 August 1932) under the auspices of Count Giuseppe Volpi di Misurata, President of the Biennale, the sculptor Antonio Maraini, General Secretary, and Luciano De Feo, General Secretary of the International Institute for Educational Cinema, based in Rome. Luciano De Feo was the very first director-selector.
Italy’s highest authorities gave their approval to what would rightly be considered the first international event of its type. The 1932 Festival was held on the terrace of the Hotel Excelsior on the Venice Lido, and while at that stage it was not a competitive event, it included foremost films which became classics in the history of cinema: It Happened One Night by Frank Capra, Grand Hotel by Edmund Goulding, The Champ by King Vidor, Frankenstein by James Whale, Zemlja by Aleksandr Dovzenko, Gli uomini, che mascalzoni! by Mario Camerini and A nous la liberté by René Clair. The list of directors included leading names such as: Raoul Walsh, Ernst Lubitsch, Nikolaj Ekk, Howard Hawks, George Fitzmaurice, Maurice Tourner, and Anatol Litvak. The top stars of the moment appeared on the screen, from Greta Garbo to Clark Gable, Fredric March to Wallace Beery, Norma Shearer to James Cagney, Ronald Colman to Loretta Young, John Barrymore to Joan Crawford, and Vittorio De Sica, attracting over 25 thousand spectators.
The very first film to be shown in the history of the Festival was Rouben Mamoulian’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, that was screened at 9:15 p.m. on 6 August 1932. In the report taken from ‘La Gazzetta di Venezia’ we learn that “the screening of the film” was followed by a grand ball in the Hotel Excelsior and “colourful comings and goings of the most exquisite attire”. As there were no official awards, an audience referendum was conducted: best director was the Soviet Nikolaj Ekk for Putjovka v zizn, while the best film was René Clair’s A nous la liberté.
The second Festival was held from 1 to 20 August 1934 and for the first time it included a competition. 19 countries took part with over 300 accredited journalists. The “Coppa Mussolini” was introduced for best foreign film and best Italian film; however there was no actual jury.
The awards were assigned by the President of the Biennale, after listening to the opinions of both experts and audiences, and in accordance with the “National Institute for Educational Cinema”, a branch of the Society of Nations based in Rome. Other awards were the “Great Gold Medals of the National Fascist Association for Entertainment” to best actor and actress. The prize for best foreign film to Flaherty’s Man of Aran, was a confirmation of the taste of the time for auteur documentaries.
As of 1935 the Festival became a yearly event (a clear sign of its international success) under the direction of Ottavio Croze. There was an increase in the number of films and countries participating, and the actors’ award was renamed “Coppa Volpi”. In 1936 an international jury was nominated for the first time and in 1937 the new Palazzo del Cinema was inaugurated (designed by the architect Luigi Quagliata), after a record construction time in line with the modernist trends of the era; with the exception of the years 1940 to 1948, it has hosted the Festival ever since. The Festival expanded: the number of participating countries increased as did the number of films accepted. 1938 meant the first retrospective, devoted to French cinema from 1891 to 1933. Marlene Dietrich came to the Lido, consecrating the star worship that accompanied the Festival.
As regards foreign films, selected by their respective countries until 1956, French cinema in particular, the ’30s saw masterpieces the likes of René Clair’s A nous la liberté (1932) and Duvivier’s Un carnet de bal (1937), La grande illusion (1937) by Renoir, Quai des brumes (1938) and Le jour se lève (1939) by Marcel Carnè. The Italian award-winning films between 1937 and 1942 were works of propaganda, even if by outstanding directors such as Goffredo Alessandrini and Augusto Genina. The Festival was held three times during the Second World War, from 1940 to 1942 (not counted in the total number of festivals), with screenings temporarily held at the cinema San Marco in Venice, and participation limited to the member countries or sympathisers with the Alliance.
A Perth film based on a disturbed couple with striking similarities to David and Catherine Birnie has been selected to premiere at the Venice International Film Festival – one of the top three international festivals in the world.
The kidnap thriller, Hounds of Love, began shooting in Western Australia earlier this year, drawing its storyline from a number of infamous local and international crimes.
Emma Booth and Stephen Curry in Perth film, Hounds of Love. (Photo: Australia on Screen/Jean-Paul Horr)
Award-winning Perth film maker Ben Young created the film, which stars Emma Booth, Stephen Curry and Ashleigh Cummings.
It is the second WA film to ever be accepted into the Venice International Film Festival.
A scene from Hounds of Love. (Photo: Australia on Screen)
The storyline is understood to centre around a teenage girl who is abducted from a suburban street by a husband and wife couple in the mid-1980s – but producer Melissa Kelly has previously denied the film is inspired by the Birnie murders, claiming it is fiction.
David and Catherine Birnie kidnapped, raped and murdered three women and a teenager in the 1980s – holding their victims captive in their Perth home.
The pair were sentenced to a minimum of 20 years in jail after a teenager they abducted from a Nedlands street escaped and alerted police.
Mr Young did not directly address the rumours of the Birnie connection on Wednesday, but said he was thrilled to have worked with such a talented group of people.
“I’m so thrilled that all the wonderful and talented cast and crew, who took a risk on this West Australian film, are being recognised on the international stage,” he said.
According to Screenwest, which partly funded Hounds of Love, the feature film is one of the first to be developed, filmed and post-produced entirely in WA.
“It attracted international recognition when it was pitched at the European Film Market in Berlin last year, and its selection for Venice Days is a coup for the local film industry, and a testament to the talent development programs implemented by Screenwest,” Screenwest said in a statement.
The Venice International Film Festival runs from August 31 to September 10, 2016 and is the oldest film festival in the world.
Hounds of Love will premiere during Venice Days – the equivalent to the Cannes Director’s Fortnight.
The screening schedule for the public at the 73rd Venice Film Festival includes 11 days of programming from Wednesday 31 August to Saturday 10 September. The Pre-opening Night will take place on Tuesday 30 August, 8:30 pm, Sala Darsena, featuring Tutti a casa (1960) by Luigi Comencini.
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The 73rd Venice International Film Festival will take place on the Lido from August 31st to September 10th, directed by Alberto Barbera and organized by the Biennale di Venezia chaired by Paolo Baratta.
Good news for Indian indie lovers: filmmaker Chaitanya Tamhane will be on the jury of the Orizzonti (Horizons) section of this year’s Venice International Film Festival, as per a report by Variety.
His debut film Court, a multilingual courtroom drama, had won two awards at the prestigious festival in 2014 — the Lion Of The Future for Tamhane and Best Film – Orizzonti. It later went on to win many awards at festivals all around the world before winning the National Award for Best Feature Film in 2015.
Court was officially selected as India’s entry for the Best Foreign Language Film Award at the 88th Academy Awards. However, it failed to garner a nomination.
The Horizons section at Venice, the oldest film festival in the world, is dedicated to the discovery of cutting-edge cinema. Tamhane’s fellow jury members include American film critic and historian Jim Hoberman, Egyptian actress Nelly Karim, Italian actress Valentina Lodovini, South Korean actress-director Moon So-ri, and Spanish critic Jose Maria Prado.
In June, Tamhane was selected to be mentored by Oscar-winning Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón under the Rolex Mentor & Protégé Arts Initiative for 2016–17.
*Featured photo: Writer and director Chaitanya Tamhane poses with the Orizzonti Award for Best Film and the Lion of the Future for a debut film (Luigi De Laurentis) for his movie ‘Court’ during a photocall following the awards ceremony on the closing day of the 71st Venice Film Festival on September 6, 2014 at Venice Lido. Photo credit: GABRIEL BOUYS/AFP/Getty Images
KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 2 — A co-production between Malaysia and Philippines called Singing in Graveyards is set to represent Asia at the 73rd Venice International Film Festival.
The movie, which will be making its world premiere at said festival, is the only Asian movie that will be competing at the festival’s 31st edition of Critics’ Week, In Competition.
It is also up for the Lion of the Future Award from the Main Section of the festival.
Singing in Graveyards marks the directorial debut by Malaysian producer Bradley Liew, who received the Visions Sud Est Production Support Fund to make his first feature.
This isn’t the first time for the 26-year-old filmmaker to collaborate with Filipino talents, as he also previously produced Lav Diaz’s When The Waves Are Gone, which won the Paris Coproduction Village Award at the 20th Hong Kong Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF).
Starring Filipino-British singer-songwriter Pepe Smith, Singing in Graveyards tells the story of 68-year-old Pepe, an impersonator of a Filipino rock legend who lives alone on the borders of reality, imagination and mysticism.
Also part of the cast are Filipino actors Mercedes Cabral, Susan Africa, Sunshine Teodoro, Bernardo Bernando, Matt Daclan and Joel Saracho, as well as producer Bianca Balbuena, filmmaker Lav Diaz, and singer Ely Buendia.
The 2016 Venice International Film Festival will run at Venice Lido from August 31 to September 10.
British director Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Road to Perdition, Skyfall, Spectre) will be the president of the International Jury of the Competition at the 73rd Venice International Film Festival (August 31 – September 10, 2016), which will assign the Golden Lion for best film, as well as other official awards. The decision was made by the Board of Directors of the Biennaledi Venezia, chaired by Paolo Baratta, on the recommendation of the Festival’s Director, Alberto Barbera.
British Director Sam Mendes
Right from his 1988 debut as a theatrical director, Sam Mendes made a name for himself as one of the outstanding figures in British theatre, winning numerous awards. He later also established himself as one of the most highly respected film directors of recent years. His debut behind the movie camera was dazzling: in 2000, American Beauty won five Oscars, including best director and best picture. He next directed Road to Perdition, which competed at the 2002 Venice Film Festival. Since then, Sam Mendes has been a regular on London’s stages and on the sets of Hollywood films, all the way up to the extraordinary success of the 23rd James Bond movie, Skyfall, confirmed by the next in the series, Spectre, also directed by Mendes.
73rd Venice International Film Festival Director Alberto Barbera
Says Festival Director Alberto Barbera, “Sam Mendes’ work is a particularly effective and convincing synthesis of a vocation for distinctive theatre and cinema, combined with research into methods of communication with increasingly large numbers of spectators. His productions, whether destined for stage or screen, are able to reconcile the expectations of the most exacting critics with the tastes of a vast audience which seems to transcend all geographical and cultural boundaries.”
Says Sam Mendes, “I’m very honoured to have been asked by Alberto to lead the International Jury for Venezia 73. I’ve always had a strong personal connection with Venice; as a student I worked for three months at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection way back in 1984, and my happiest film festival memory is launching Road To Perdition at Venice in 2002. I am thoroughly delighted to be coming back to the Lido this year and welcoming a wealth of international filmmaking talent.”
On the final night of the upcoming 73rd Film Festival (September 10, 2016), the International Jury ofVenezia 73, chaired by Sam Mendes and composed of nine international celebrities in the spheres of film and culture, will assign the following official prizes to feature-length films in the Competition:
Golden Lion for best film
Grand Jury Prize
Best Director
Volpi Cup for Best Actor
Volpi Cup for Best Actress
Best Screenplay
Special Jury Prize
Marcello Mastroianni Award to an emerging actor or actress
Sam Mendes
In 1998 Sam Mendes directed his first film American Beauty, winning the Academy Award for Best Director and Best Picture, as well as the Golden Globe and Directors’ Guild Awards. He has since directed the Academy Award-winning Road to Perdition with Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, and Jude Law, which debuted at the Venice Film Festival, Jarhead with Jake Gyllenhaal and Jamie Foxx, Revolutionary Road with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, Away We Go, the BAFTA and Academy Award-winning Skyfall and Spectre, starring Daniel Craig.
Sam Mendes’s work directing theatre spans 25 years. At 24 years old he became the first Artistic Director of the Minerva Theatre in Chichester, England. At 27 he founded the Donmar Warehouse in London, which he ran for ten years, and where he directed many productions including Assassins, Translations, Glengarry Glen Ross, Company, The Glass Menagerie, Habeas Corpus, Uncle Vanya and Twelfth Night. It is now one of the world’s leading playhouses.
Sam has directed for the Royal Shakespeare Company –Troilus and Cressida with Ralph Fiennes, Richard III, The Tempest and The Alchemist; for the National Theatre –The Sea with Judi Dench, The Birthday Party, The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, Othello and King Lear; in the West End –The Cherry Orchard, London Assurance, Kean, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and on Broadway – Cabaret with Natasha Richardson and Alan Cumming, The Blue Room with Nicole Kidman, Gypsy, and The Vertical Hour with Julianne Moore.
In 2009 Sam founded the Bridge Project, a transatlantic theatre company, for which he directed The Winter’s Tale with Ethan Hawke, The Cherry Orchard, The Tempest, As You Like It and Richard III with Kevin Spacey. His many awards include: three Olivier Awards, three Tony Awards, the Evening Standard Award, three Critics’ Choice Awards, five Empire Awards, the BAFTA John Schlesinger Award and the Hamburg Shakespeare Prize.
In 2003 he founded Neal Street Productions, which produces three BAFTA award-winning television series – Penny Dreadful, Call the Midwife and The Hollow Crown -along with many other films and plays.
He was awarded a CBE in 2000 and the Directors’ Guild Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005.
Because of the war, few countries participated in the 1940, 1941 and 1942 Festivals, not taken into consideration later on, with the dominating presence of the members of the Alliance. Following the war pause, the Festival was held again in 1946 with screenings at Cinema San Marco (the Palazzo del Cinema had been requisitioned by the Allies).
After the first neo-realist films were shown at the Festival (Paisà by Roberto Rossellini and Il sole sorge ancora by Aldo Vergano in 1946, La terra trema by Luchino Visconti in 1948), a number of foremost Italian figures were recognised as leading talents in the ’50s and ’60s: Fellini, Antonioni, Rosi, Olmi, Bertolucci, Pasolini, Vancini, De Seta, and Zurlini. The fact that Luchino Visconti did not receive the Golden Lion for Senso in 1954 nor for Rocco e i suoi fratelli in 1960 led to heated debate. Visconti was to be awarded the top prize in 1964 for Vaghe stelle dell’Orsa.
The first “Esposizione d’Arte Cinematografica” came into being in 1932 as part of the 18th Venice Biennale (from 6 July to 21 August 1932) under the auspices of Count Giuseppe Volpi di Misurata, President of the Biennale, the sculptor Antonio Maraini, General Secretary, and Luciano De Feo, General Secretary of the International Institute for Educational Cinema, based in Rome. Luciano De Feo was the very first director-selector.
