I’m a veteran of several film festivals including the Newport Beach Film Festival, the Berlin International Film Festival, the American Film Institute's AFIFest Hollywood and AFI DOCS, the famed Venice International Film Festival, the San Luis Obispo SLO Film Fest, and the Santa Barbara International Film Festival's family of festivals including the SBIFF, the SBIFF Wave Festivals and the SBIFF Showcase Film Series. To date I’ve written and published over 100 film reviews and have work posted on four sites including sbccfilmreviews.org, imdb.com. I have also been published in Classic Film Images magazine.
In addition to writing reviews and covering film festivals, I am currently seeking distribution for new films. I have contacts in several major markets including Los Angeles, New York, Toronto, and Cannes, France.
So when you’re looking for your film to get noticed, remember HollywoodGlee can help. We have professional marketers, respected critics and the most knowledgeable contacts on what film festival and/or distribution channel is right for you and your film.
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La Biennale di Venezia announces that it has cancelled the gala dinner and reception scheduled for August 31st
La Biennale di Venezia announces that it has cancelled the gala dinner and reception on the beach that have traditionally followed the opening ceremony of the 73rd Venice International Film Festival, scheduled for August 31st.
La Biennale di Venezia shares in the bereavement, expresses its deepest sorrow for the victims, and its utmost solidarity and support to the communities struck by the earthquake.
The fourth edition of the FINAL CUT IN VENICE workshop will take place from September 3 to September 5, 2016 during the Venice Production Bridge of the 73rd Venice International Film Festival (Lido di Venezia, 31st August – 10th September 2016).
The Festival’s purpose is to provide concrete assistance in the completion of films from Africa and from Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Syria; and to offer producers and directors an opportunity to present films still in the production phase to international film professionals and distributors in order to facilitate post-production and promote co-production partnerships and market access.
The workshop consists in three days of activities, in which the working copies of a maximum of six selected films (see articles 5 and 6) are presented to producers, buyers, distributors and film festival programmers. Networking, encounters and meetings will allow directors and producers to interact directly with the workshop participants.
The workshop also includes screenings of material of the selected films in the presence of the directors and producers. Only Industry pass holders will be allowed to attend the screenings: producers, distributors, operators, buyers, festival programmers, representatives of the institutions and others invited in advance by the Festival management.
The workshop will conclude with the awarding of prizes, in kind or in cash, for the financial support of the films in their post-production phase:
up to € 7,000 for the accessible contents of the film for audiences with sensory disabilities: subtitles for the deaf and hearing impaired and audio description for the blind and visually impaired, with audio subtitles, in Italian or English, offered by SUB-TI ACCESS Srl (Turin)
(the SDH file and the audio described soundtrack for DCP will be provided)
up to € 7,000 for the production of the DCP master and Italian or English subtitles, offered by Sub-Ti Ltd. (London);
up to € 10,000 for digital color correction, for the production of a DCP master and French or English subtitles, offered by Titra Film (Paris)
Up to € 15,000 for the sound mixing offered by Mactari Mixing Auditorium (Paris);
€ 15,000 for the color correction of a feature-length film offered by Laser Film (Rome) for up to 50 hours of work (technician included);
€ 5,000 for the purchase of two-year broadcasting rights by Rai Cinema;
€ 5,000 offered by the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) to an African or Arabian film from a member-country of La Francophonie
A 35mm print (without subtitles) or the participation in the production costs of a DCP (€ 1,500), offered by the Festival International du Film d’Amiens;
A 35mm print (without subtitles) or the participation in the production costs of a DCP (€ 1,500), offered by the Festival International de Films de Fribourg;
Marketing, publicity and distribution in the Arab World for one Arab project is offered by MAD Solutions (except for projects already attached to MAD Solutions).
(ANSA) – Rome, August 22 – The United States has seven films in competition at the 73rd Venice International Film Festival running in the lagoon city from August 31 to September 10. The line-up is a mixed bag of genres and themes, including the romantic horror-thriller The Bad Batch written and directed by American-Iranian director Ana Lily Amirpour, the family drama The Light between Oceans by Derek Cianfrance, Nocturnal Animals by Tom Ford, recounting the tragic misadventures of a man on holiday with his family, and the biopic Jackie by Pablo Larrain biopic starring Natalie Portman in the role of Jackie Kennedy.
Other US films to look out for at Venice are Voyage of Time, a documentary film written and directed by Terrence Malick examining the birth and death of the known universe, new alien invasion movie Arrival by Denis Villeneuve, loosely inspired by the novel Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang, and La La Land, a homage to the Golden Age of the American musical written and directed by Damien Chazelle and starring Emma Stone, Ryan Gosling, John Legend and J. K. Simmons. photo: Stone and Gosling in La La Land.
Werner Herzog’s one of the most distinctive voices in Cinema – excelling both in fiction and documentaries. His latest, “Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World” explores the internet – an incredibly timely topic – and the movie’s thought provoking as well as absorbing. It plays tonight at 5pm and tomorrow at 7:30pm at the Riviera Theatre. Below find a Washington Post review.
In ‘Lo and Behold,’ Werner Herzog examines good, evil and the Internet
By Ann Hornaday – The Washington Post
Werner Herzog has explored the known world from the Amazon and Antarctica to the prehistoric cave of Chauvet. It seems only fitting that he would set his restless, perpetually questioning sights on the Internet, the ether where we spend increasingly more of our lives, at their most public and most intensely secret.
Herzog’s documentary “Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World” is just what its title promises: A series of ruminations, each its own 10-to-15-minute chapter, on the origins, implications, moral ambiguities and latent possibilities of a medium we’ve absorbed readily, almost reflexively, without much consideration of the consequences.
Beginning at UCLA, where the first message was sent on what would become the Internet, and traveling the globe to interview engineers and astronomers, philosophers and hackers, robotics experts and refuseniks, Herzog creates an intriguing bookend to Alex Gibney’s “Zero Days,” which examined the looming dangers of cyberwarfare. Although Herzog touches briefly on the subject of security, he’s far more interested in how our online life has changed us and whether it’s allowed us to access the best parts of ourselves — such as when a huge community of gamers comes together to help find a cure for disease — or the worst, represented by a family who were sent horrific emails and graphic pictures following the death of their daughter in a car accident.
Is the technological ideal to be found in absolute transparency or absolute privacy? As one early pioneer observes, the founding irony of the Internet is that it was created by scientists with such idealism and mutual trust that they couldn’t comprehend the potential for anonymous cruelty and abuse that they were unleashing.
Formally, “Lo and Behold” breaks no new ground: It’s a collection of talking heads, archival footage and illustrations, punctuated by Herzog’s own queries and asides, delivered in the German accent that always conveys a tone of barely contained existential panic. Of course, that’s what makes the movie special, as when Herzog insists on bringing the conversation back to the mysteries of love and attraction, or when, during a speculative digression about video games, he intones the phrase “malevolent Druid dwarf.”
Thoughtful, searching and wonderfully moving in its wistful final moments, “Lo and Behold” may not be Herzog’s most artistically ambitious film, but it’s an intriguing, even important one nonetheless. Come for the engaging, reflective tutorial on technological progress, human nature and transformation; stay for the malevolent Druid dwarves.
The UAE just can’t seem to stop popping up in movies lately, and the latest appearance finds the Burj Khalifa and surrounding Downtown Dubai popping up in the trailer for Terrence Malick’s epic, 40+ years (and counting) in the making Voyage of Time.
The film, somewhat bravely, seeks to chart the history of time from its beginning to its end, and features a 40-minute IMAX version narrated by Brad Pitt – himself no stranger to the UAE following last year’s War Machine shoot – while a feature length 35mm version will reportedly be narrated by Cate Blanchett.
We don’t imagine the Burj will take quite such a starring role as it did in, say 2011’s Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, after all with the entire, as yet unfinished, history of time to squeeze into 40 minutes there’s likely to be quite a bit of competition for airtime, but the aerial shots we see in the trailer are pretty impressive, nonetheless.
The long-awaited movie will finally premiere at the Venice Film Festival in Septemeber, beginning its international roll out the following month.
The unmistakable face of Eric von Stroheim, a guest at the Venice Film Festival in 1951, shown here with Giovanni Ponti, the Special Commissioner of the Biennale. In 1958 the Venice Film Festival dedicated a major retrospective to the Austrian director.
KENJI MIZOGUCHI ON THE BEACH – PHOTO
Kenji Mizoguchi on the beach of the Lido in 1953: he was the winner of the Silver Lion that year for Ugetsu Monogatari, jointly with Moulin Rouge by John Huston, Thérèse Raquin by Marcel Carné, Sadko by Aleksandr Ptushko, I vitelloni by Federico Fellini and The Little Fugitive by Ray Ashley, Morris Engel, Ruth Orkin. The Jury chose not to award the Golden Lion.
GINA LOLLOBRIGIDA ON THE SEASHORE AT THE LIDO – PHOTO
Gina Lollobrigida on the seashore at the Lido in 1956: she was one of the most highly acclaimed stars that year. Oriana Fallaci described her triumphal arrival at the Palazzo del Cinema in L’Europeo magazine: “A roar rose up from the crowd. The metal barricades risked snapping like twigs, the 156 policemen trying to hold back all those bodies were on the verge of being overwhelmed by the crush. Gina alighted from a taxi accompanied by Milko Skofic and by a bodyguard. Milko looked bored. Gina was wearing a blue-green satin dress, glittering with sequins; she exhibited blood-red gloves and not a jewel around her neck. (…) The photographers rushed towards her. The bodyguard enclosed her in a circle of arms. You could no longer see her long breezy black curls, her immense wonderstruck eyes and her full lips. (…) All of this took place at ten in the evening on Tuesday August 28th, the day of the inauguration of the 17th Film Festival, also known as the Lollo’s Festival, for the heroine of our time”. Gina Lollobrigida had already participated in the Venice Film Festival in 1952 as the actress in two films: Altri tempi, a film in nine episodes by Alessandro Blasetti, and Les belles de nuit by René Clair.
ANGELO RIZZOLI AND FEDERICO FELLINI – PHOTO
Producer Angelo Rizzoli and a young Federico Fellini meet outside the Palazzo del Cinema: the year is 1958. A few months later, in March 1959, together they would begin production of La dolce vita.
ELSA MAXWELL AND OLIVIA DE HAVILLAND – PHOTO
Elsa Maxwell, the tireless mover of the Venetian smart set, dressed extravagantly as a Navy officer, hugs actress Olivia de Havilland in Venice, in 1955.
JOAN FONTAINE DISEMBARKS AT THE LIDO – PHOTO
1952: Joan Fontaine disembarks on the famous Darsena of the Excelsior Hotel. The actress came to the Venice Film Festival as the star of Ivanhoe by Richard Thorpe.
MARIA CALLAS IN VENICE – PHOTO
1957: Maria Callas is one of the stars that enliven the nights of the 18th Venice Film Festival with her husband Giovanni Battista Meneghini. That was the year that the opera singer met Aristotle Onassis for the first time in Venice, and two years later he would become her partner.
The Biennale Cinema 2016 will run Aug. 31 to Sept. 10
18 feature films will be available online worldwide
Leading the online screening experience additionally to its regular programming, the Venice Film Festival continues exploring the international audience beyond the traditional theatres. For a new edition, the Venice Sala Web will serve as the meeting point for film lovers worldwide, who will have the possibility to watch world premieres and follow the Biennale buzz on www.festivalscope.com/venicesalaweb2016. Only 400 tickets will be available for each film.
In addition to titles from the Orizzonti section and from Biennale College, the Venice Sala Web will expand for the first time to selected films from other sections, like THE ORCHID SELLER by 2015 Golden Lion winner Lorenzo Vigas. Reknown directors like Wang Bing from China and Parviz Shahbazi from Iran will join a line-up with the new works by Tim Sutton, Gastón Solnicki, Peter Brosens and Jessica Woodworth, whose previous film THE FIFTH SEASON screened in Competition at the Festival, winning the Young Cinema Award.
These 2016 world premieres will serve as a follow-up for a previous edition that saw the world premieres of multi-awarded films like Gabriel Mascaro’s NEON BULL and Anita Rocha da Silveira’s KILL ME PLEASE.
Four titles supported by the Biennale College will also be part of the Venice Sala Web line-up. The Biennale College is a higher education workshop for the development and production of micro-budget feature length films, and a launching platform for new talent, like Rania Attieh & Daniel Garcia with H. in 2014 and Anna Rose Holmer with THE FITS in 2015.
The 5th edition of this innovative project will be not only an opportunity for film lovers, but also for directors to find synergies with an audience of cinephiles, eager for new artistic surprises. That is how La Biennale sees it, in words of its director Alberto Barbera: “We believe film festivals can always find new ways to reach international audiences, and that is specially true thanks to the new technologies. Sala Web is a key example of it, as it allows filmmakers find their public beyond all frontiers, something impossible only a few years ago. As the first film festival in history, the Venice Film Festival needs to be part of this new story that is being told.”
Sala Web screenings will be hosted on a secure site operated byFestival Scope (www.festivalscope.com) on behalf of the Venice Film Festival. Festival Scope is the online platform where international film lovers can discover innovative new films from home, through exclusive events in partnership with the most prominent film festivals in the world.
Digital tickets for Sala Web screenings are on sale on Festival Scope. Users may register to buy tickets for the online screenings with all tickets priced at 4€ or a Festival Pass (2€ per film from 5 films). Once they have purchased a ticket for a chosen title, users will be able to screen the film once during a 10 day period beginning at 9pm (Venice time, GMT+2) on the day of the film’s official premiere at the Venice Film Festival.
2016 Venice Sala Web line-up
Orizzonti Competition
THE EREMITES (DIE EINSIEDLER), by Ronny Trocker – from 2 Sept.
Germany, Austria, 110′
HOME, by Fien Troch – from 3 Sept.
Belgium, 103′
KING OF THE BELGIANS, by Peter Brosens, Jessica Woodworth – from 3 Sept.
Belgium, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, 94′
I WAS A DREAMER (IL PIÙ GRANDE SOGNO), by Michele Vannucci – from 4 Sept.
Italy, 97′
MAUDITE POUTINE, by Karl Lemieux – from 5 Sept.
Canada, 91′
DARK NIGHT (Orizzonti – Special Screening Out of Competition), by Tim Sutton – from 6 Sept.
USA, 85′
KÉKSZAKÁLLÚ, by Gastón Solnicki – from 7 Sept.
Argentina, 72′
LIBERA NOS (LIBERAMI), by Federica Di Giacomo – from 7 Sept.
Italy, France, 89′
BIG BIG WORLD (KOCA DÜNYA), by Reha Erdem – from 8 Sept.
Turkey, 100′
MALARIA, by Parviz Shahbazi – from 9 Sept.
Iran, 90′
BITTER MONEY (KU QIAN), by Wang Bing – from 9 Sept.
Hong Kong, France, 150′
Out of Competition
OUR WAR, by Bruno Chiaravalloti, Claudio Jampaglia, Benedetta Argentieri – from 9 Sept.
Italy, USA, 69’
Biennale College – Cinema
EARS (ORECCHIE), by Alessandro Aronadio – from 1 Sept.
Italy, 90’
HOTEL SALVATION (MUKTI BHAWAN), by Shubhashish Bhutiani – from 2 Sept.
India, 103’
THE SOLITUDE (LA SOLEDAD), by Jorge Thielen Armand – from 3 Sept.
Venezuela, 89’
ONE SISTER (UNA HERMANA), by Sofia Brockenshire, Verena Kuri – from 4 Sept.
Argentina, 68’
Cinema nel Giardino
FRANCA: CHAOS AND CREATION, by Francesco Carrozzini – from 2 Sept.
Italy, USA, 80’
Out of Competition – Special Screenings
THE ORCHID SELLER (EL VENDEDOR DE ORQUIDEAS), by Lorenzo Vigas – from 8 Sept.
The 73rd Venice International Film Festival presents the world premiere screening, in a special 40-minute preview, of Jesus VR – The Story of Christ, the first Virtual Reality feature-length film ever made, a new immersive experience that is revolutionizing the world of cinema. The film, which runs 90 minutes, is produced by AUTUMN™ VR Inc. and VRWERX, LLC.
For four days, from September 1st to the 4th, all accredited visitors to the Venice Film Festival are invited to experience this technology applied to the preview of Jesus VR – The Story of Christ, for a short time, or for the entire duration. The screening will be held in the new VR Theatre, on the second floor of the Casinò, which will be equipped with 50 VR Head Gears for individual viewing on seats that pivot 360°.
Festival Director, Alberto Barbera
“We are particularly happy to present the world’s first virtual reality feature film. – declared Alberto Barbera, director of the Venice Film Festival. – JESUS helps show the narrative and spectacular potential of this new technology, which until now has been limited to brief films. The presentation is particularly important because this year the updated film market, now called Venice Production Bridge, is also presenting 6 VR projects among the 40 proposed audiovisual products in search of financing, alongside movies, documentaries, TV series and web series. It is a sign of the attention the Venice Film Festival pays to the sweeping changes which are helping redefine the horizons of the production of images in motion.”
Virtual Reality is a new revolutionary expressive means that is redefining the forms of cinema and the media industry, offering new creative opportunities to directors and artists, to tell new stories and explore original innovative languages.
Jesus VR – The Story of Christ offers audiences an experience that is unparalleled in its immediacy, going back 2,000 years in time to witness the story of Jesus Christ from his birth to his resurrection, from his baptism to his first miracles, through the last hours of his crucifixion.
Jesus VR – The Story of Christ was shot entirely in Matera in 4K 360° with an all-Italian crew. This is the first and most ambitious feature-length Virtual Reality film ever produced, employing the biggest VR production crew ever, with over a hundred crew members and hundreds of extras.
Enzo Sisti is the executive producer of Jesus VR – The Story of Christ, and in earlier years was the executive producer of The Passion of the Christ (2004). The religious advisor is Father William Fulco, who was also religious advisor on The Passion of the Christ.
Jesus VR – The Story of Christ was directed and produced by David Hansen with his partner Johnny Mac through Autumn™ VR and VRWERX’s Alex Barder and Russell Naftal.
“We’re proud to have shot this entire innovative film in Italy with a mostly Italian crew”, says Executive Producer Enzo Sisti, “It’s fantastic that the first place we’re screening it is in the fabulous Venice International Film Festival.”
Jesus VR – The Story of Christ will be available this Christmas on all major Virtual Reality platforms including Google Cardboard, Samsung Gear, Oculus Rift, PlayStation VR and the HTC VIVE.
The Biennale Cinema 2016 will run Aug. 31 to Sept. 10. For more information on tickets click here.
On June 10th, 1940, Italy declared war: the echoes of the conflict were heard at the Venice Film Festival, though in terms that were still triumphant. The Minister Alessandro Pavolini came to Venice, to participate in a special screening for the soldiers at the Teatro Rossini: “When he appeared on the central stage”, reports the announcer, “the 500 soldiers that crowded the theatre jumped to their feet to acclaim him. A salute to the king and to the Duce introduced the world premiere screening of the festival dedicated with brotherly solidarity to our soldiers on land, sea and sky”.
Rigorous climate of war at the Venice Film Festival, in which “seventeen nations which embrace all of Europe in its active, healthy, working part”, says the announcer. The clip shows Ministers Pavolini and Goebbels at a performance reserved for the armed forces and the screening of the German film Ritorno.
The first post-war Venice Film Festival espoused the “principle of quality”, “which alone can inspire the new civilization for which millions and millions of men fought and died”, says the announcer. In the film clip from the Archivio Storico Luce we can see, among others, the first President of the Italian Republic Enrico De Nicola, the Minister Pietro Nenni, the President of the Biennale Giovanni Ponti, Count Zorzi and Massimo Bontempelli. The inaugural event features screenings of the documentary films L’Italia s’é desta and Blood and Sand by Rouben Mamoulian. “People in cinema”, recites the clip, “made peace long ago with Italy, and the programme of the Venice Film Festival is here to prove it: Great Britain, Russia, the United States, France and Sweden have sent the best of their production”.
Alida Valli in the Sala Grande in 1946 for the presentation of Eugenia Grandet (Eugenie Grandet) by Mario Soldati: the first edition after the War was a temporary festival that awarded no prizes, just a series of special mentions.
In 1948 the Venice Film Festival returned to the Palazzo del Cinema on the Lido, after temporarily moving to its location in the courtyard of the Doge’s Palace in Venice. “The honour of opening the Festival”, says the announcer, “went at random to the English film The Red Shoes, by Powell and Pressburger. The most prestigious film competition in the world promises this year to be of exceptional importance”.
1948: twenty-nine year old Giulio Andreotti, Under-secretary of State for the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, attends one of the screenings at the Venice Film Festival. That year Hamlet by Laurence Olivier triumphed as Best Film and Jean Simmons, in the role of Ophelia, won the Coppa Volpi for Best Actress.
The Shah of Persia visits Venice for the Film Festival, from the “monumental” city to the “resort” area on the Lido. The clip also shows Anna Magnani, the star of Roberto Rossellini’s Amore, Orson Welles, Lea Padovani.
Orson Welles and Darryl F. Zanuck on the beach on the Lido in 1948. Welles was in Venice to present Macbeth in competition, Zanuck was producing The Snake Pit by Anatole Litvak, which the following year would win the Coppa Volpi as Best Actress for Olivia de Havilland.
The 69th Festival in 2012 saw Alberto Barbera as the new artistic director alongside remarkable new initiatives: the launch of Biennale College – Cinema, a higher education training workshop for the development and production of micro-budget audio-visual works, and the establishment of the Venice Film Market in dedicated spaces at the Excelsior Hotel. As part of the renovation – in agreement with the City of Venice – of the existing facilities of the Festival, which included the restoration of the Sala Grande in 2011, a new, larger and more functional foyer in the Palazzo del Cinema was built to welcome the public. The intervention also included the renovation of two historic screening rooms, the Pasinetti and Zorzi, for an overall extension of 50 more seats.
The retrospective was titled «80!» on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the Venice Film Festival (1932-2012) and presented unique copies of films thought to be lost but actually existing in the Biennale’s ASAC archive collections. This was complemented by theVenice Classics section of restored classic films. The opening film was Mira Nair’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist; the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement was given to Italian director Francesco Rosi, who received the award from Giuseppe Tornatore. The main jury chaired by Michael Mann awarded the Golden Lion to Pieta by Kim Ki-duk and the Silver Lion and the Coppa Volpi for best actor to The Master by Paul Thomas Anderson and the two actors Philip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix. Among the stars that were on the red carpet, Robert Redford (his first-time attendance on the Lido), Michael Cimino (Persol Award), Spike Lee (Jaeger-LeCoultre Glory to the Film-maker Award), Brian De Palma, Jonathan Demme, Kate Hudson, Liev Schreiber, Winona Ryder, Michael Shannon, Ray Liotta, Pierce Brosnan, Michael Fassbender, Isabelle Huppert, Claudia Cardinale, Noomi Rapace, Kristin Scott Thomas, Olga Kurylenko, Emmanuelle Seigner, Takeshi Kitano, Peter Brook, Liliana Cavani, Marco Bellocchio, Toni Servillo, Valerio Mastandrea, Barbora Bobulova and teen-idols such as Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Zac Efron, James Franco, and Shia LaBeouf.
To celebrate its 70th edition, the Festival of 2013, directed by Alberto Barbera, created the special project,Venezia 70 – Future Reloaded. 70 directors from all around the world made a short film, lasting between 60 and 90 seconds, in total creative freedom. All these short films were given their world premiere at the Lido during the 70thFestival, and later published on the Biennale website http://www.labiennale.org in a new and specific page dedicated to the history of the Festival, with the addition of rare photographs and unique documents preserved at the Biennale Historical Archives of Contemporary Arts (ASAC), as well as 40 excerpts from footage films kept in the archives of the Archivio Storico Istituto Luce Cinecittà (which were screened at the Festival before the films from the Official Selection).
The 2013 edition also presented successfully the 3 feature films of the Biennale College – Cinema, an advanced workshop opened to young filmmakers from around the world for the production of micro-budget films, launched at the 2012 Festival. It also announced the 12 projects of the 2nd edition of the Biennale College – Cinema 2013/14. The 2nd edition of the Venice Film Market also proved to be a success, set up in dedicated spaces at the Hotel Excelsior, and involving 246 major distributors. As part of the redevelopment of the historic structures of the Festival – carried out jointly with the City of Venice – the Palazzo del Casinò had a new 150-seat room (Sala Casinò) and the Press Room was expanded and technologically improved. Gravity, directed by Alfonso Cuarón and starring Sandra Bullock
and George Clooney, was the opening film in 3D. The Golden Lion for lifetime achievement of the Biennale was awarded to American film director William Friedkin. The Jury of the Venice 70 competition, headed by Bernardo Bertolucci, awarded the Golden Lion to the film Sacro GRA by the Italian director Gianfranco Rosi. The Silver Lion for Best Director was awarded to Alexandros Avranasfor Miss Violence (Greece), the Grand Jury Prize went toJiaoyouby Tsai Ming-liang (Chinese Taipei). The Coppa Volpi for Best Actor was awarded to Themis Panou forMiss Violence (Greece), the Coppa Volpi for Best Actress to Elena Cottafor Via Castellana Bandiera, by Emma Dante. The Italian film master Ettore Scola received the Jaeger-LeCoultre Glory to the Filmmaker award. For the occasion his film was screened, Che strano chiamarsi Federico, a homage to Federico Fellini 20 years after his passing; present at the screening was the President of the Republic, Giorgio Napolitano. Among the other masters and stars at the Lido were Andrzej Wajda (Persol Award, awarded in the presence of Lech Walesa), Paul Schrader, Bret Easton Ellis, Mia Wasikowska, Nicolas Cage, Tye Sheridan, Jesse Eisenberg, Dakota Fanning, Judi Dench, Steve Coogan, James Franco, Scott Haze, Tom Welling, Daniel Radcliffe, Tom Hardy, Scarlett Johansson, Errol Morris, Terry Gilliam, Stephen Frears, Amos Gitai, Kim Ki-duk, Patrice Leconte, Pablo Larraín, Sion Sono, Edgar Reitz, Tsai Ming-liang, Wang Bing, Philippe Garrel, Anna Mouglalis, Louis Garrel, Rebecca Hall, Alan Rickman, Richard Madden, Carrie Fisher, Martina Gedeck, Virginie Ledoyen, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Jiang Wen, Ken Watanabe, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Gianni Amelio, Alba Rohrwacher, Antonio Albanese, Giuseppe Battiston, Anita Caprioli, Marco Paolini, and Carlo Verdone.
In 2014, following an agreement with the Venice City Council, the Sala Darsena theatre was completed renovated and enlarged from 1300 to 1409 seats: the inaugural event took place on 26 August for the Festival pre-opening dedicated to the anniversary of World War I, featuring the screening of Maciste alpino (1916) by Luigi Maggi and Luigi Romano Borgnetto (direction supervisor Giovanni Pastrone) in a new restored copy. Birdman or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance by Alejandro González Iñárritu starring Michael Keaton was the opening film on 27 August. The Golden Lions for Lifetime Achievement were awarded to film editor Thelma Schoonmaker and to director Frederick Wiseman. The Venezia 71 jury, chaired by Alexandre Desplat, awarded the Golden Lion for Best Film to En duva satt på en gren och funderade på tillvaron (A Pigeon Sat On A Branch Reflecting On Existence) by Roy Andersson. The actor, director, screenwriter and producer James Franco was presented the Jaeger-LeCoultre Glory to the Filmmaker Award 2014. For the occasion, James Franco’s new film, The Sound and the Fury screened out of competition. Actress Frances McDormand was presented the Persol Tribute to Visionary Talent Award 2014, and Olive Kitteridge directed by Lisa Cholodenko starring Frances McDormand screened out of competition.
Stars on the red carpet included Al Pacino, Catherine Deneuve, Michel Piccoli, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Chiara Mastroianni , Edward Norton, Emma Stone, Andrew Garfield, Ethan Hawke, Viggo Mortensen, Michael Shannon, Abel Ferrara, Willem Dafoe, Owen Wilson, Andrea Riseborough , Stellan Skarsgård, Tahar Rahim, Maria De Medeiros, Anna Mouglalis, Elio Germano, Riccardo Scamarcio, Luca Zingaretti, Milla Jovovich, Ryô Kase, Anton Yelchin, Ashley Greene, Alexandra Daddario, Shinya Tsukamoto, Wang Xiaoshuai, Amos Gitai, Peter Bogdanovich, Peter Ho-Sun Chan, Ann Hui, Im Kwontaek, Barry Levinson, Hong Sangsoo, Fatih Akin, David Gordon Green, Andrew Niccol, Benoît Jacquot, Xavier Beauvois, Ulrich Seidl, Aléx de la Iglesia, Ami Canaan Mann, and Michael Almereyda. Three feature films in the Biennale College – Cinema section were presented: H. by Rania Attieh and Daniel Garcia, Blood Cells by Luke Seomore and Joseph Bull, and Short Skin by Duccio Chiarini. Biennale College – Cinema is a project promoted by the Biennale di Venezia since 2012 and aimed at new talents in cinema by offering them the opportunity to produce micro-budget feature films; the 12 selected projects for the 3rd edition of the Biennale College – Cinema 2014/15 were also announced. The 3rd edition of theVenice Film Market took place in dedicated spaces at the Excelsior Hotel.
The Biennale Cinema 2016 will run Aug. 31 to Sept. 10
