Between 1961 and 1962 the Festival successfully became a showcase for renewal in cinema. The different sections included films from free British cinema, the consecration of the nouvelle vague, and young Italian directors: Pasolini, Bertolucci and the Taviani brothers. The Lions were reliable and not lacking in courage: L’année dernière à Marienbad by Alain Resnais and the Zurlini/Tarkovskij team with Cronaca familiare and Ivan’s Childhood.Then came the era of Luigi Chiarini, the “professor”; from 1963 to 1968 he renewed the spirit and structure of the Venice International Film Festival. A coherent and authoritative director who spent six years organizing series of films according to strict aesthetic criteria regarding selection and resisting the social scene, political pressures and the interference of the film industry. Chiarini skilfully placed the work of masters with that of young emerging talents: Godard and Dreyer, Bergman and Penn, Pasolini and Bresson, Kurosawa and Bellocchio, Truffaut and Rossellini, then Carmelo Bene, Cassavetes and Cavani. This continued up until the last Lion, in 1968, that meant an opening onto the neuer deutscher Film with Alexander Kluge’s Die Artisten in der Zirkuskuppel: ratlos.
The Festival (along with the Biennale) still had a statute dating back to the fascist era and could not side-step the general political climate. Sixty-eight produced a dramatic fracture with the past. Up until 1980 the Lions were not awarded.
Between 1961 and 1962 the Festival successfully became a showcase for renewal in cinema. The different sections included films from free British cinema, the consecration of the nouvelle vague, and young Italian directors: Pasolini, Bertolucci and the Taviani brothers. The Lions were reliable and not lacking in courage: L’année dernière à Marienbad by Alain Resnais and the Zurlini/Tarkovskij team with Cronaca familiare and Ivan’s Childhood.
Then came the era of Luigi Chiarini, the “professor”; from 1963 to 1968 he renewed the spirit and structure of the Venice International Film Festival. A coherent and authoritative director who spent six years organizing series of films according to strict aesthetic criteria regarding selection and resisting the social scene, political pressures and the interference of the film industry. Chiarini skilfully placed the work of masters with that of young emerging talents: Godard and Dreyer, Bergman and Penn, Pasolini and Bresson, Kurosawa and Bellocchio, Truffaut and Rossellini, then Carmelo Bene, Cassavetes and Cavani. This continued up until the last Lion, in 1968, that meant an opening onto the neuer deutscher Film with Alexander Kluge’s Die Artisten in der Zirkuskuppel: ratlos.
The Festival (along with the Biennale) still had a statute dating back to the fascist era and could not side-step the general political climate. Sixty-eight produced a dramatic fracture with the past. Up until 1980 the Lions were not awarded.
(Source:www.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).
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.
