The Biennale di Venezia announces a new title in the lineup of the 73^rd Venice International Film Festival (August 31st – September 10th), presented in collaboration with the Giornate degli Autori – Venice Days.

It is the documentary film by Enrico Caria The Man Who Didn’t Change History, freely inspired by the diaries of archaeologist and art historian Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli, “Il viaggio del Fuehrer in Italia”, and made with the images from the archives of Istituto Luce – Cinecittà.

“I am thankful to Alberto Barbera,” says Giorgio Gosetti, director of the Giornate degli Autori – Venice Days, “for having agreed to let us join him in an event that not only highlights Enrico Caria’s vivid talent, but opens up a chapter in Italian history that has much to teach our present time. The protection of Italy’s historical legacy, the power of beauty versus the brutality of dictatorship, the figure of a great intellectual such as archaeologist Bianchi Bandinelli, and the paradoxical affair with Mussolini and Hitler, are all elements of cultural and political consideration to which this fictional documentary (rigorous, however, in its use of sources) gives extraordinary relevance”.

Enrico Caria is an Italian director, writer and journalist. Born in Rome (1957), he has worked as a cartoonist and journalist for “Paese Sera”, “Cuore” “Repubblica”, “L’Unità”, “Il Mattino”, “Il Fatto quotidiano”, “Le Iene”. He is a screenwriter for radio, television and cinema. He has directed dark or satirical comedies (17, ovvero: l’incredibile e triste storia del cinico Rudy Caino, Carogne, Blek Giek, L’era legale) and the docu-film Vedi Napoli e poi muori. He has published two books “Bandidos” (for Feltrinelli) and “L’uomo che cambiava idee” (for Rizzoli).

Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli (Siena, 1900 – Rome, 1975), an archaeologist and art historian, contributed significantly to renewing the study of archaeology and ancient art in Italy, in tune with the European culture of his time. In the 1930s he taught archaeology at the universities of Cagliari, Pisa, Groningen (Holland) and Florence. In 1935 he founded the “Critica d’arte” review (1935) with Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti. In 1938 he was commissioned by the Ministry of Popular Culture to serve as a guide for Adolf Hitler during his visit to Rome and Florence. He later accepted to hold lectures in Germany and to guide Hermann Goering during his visit to Rome. The following year he refused the offer to direct the Italian Archaeological School in Athens, which had just dismissed its Jewish director Alessandro Della Seta, and in 1942 refused the offer by the Ministry to teach the “History of Italian Civilization” in Berlin. He then demonstrated his definitive opposition to Fascism by joining the clandestine liberal-socialist movement (which later developed into the Partito d’Azione). After the war and through 1964, he taught at the University of Rome. He founded the magazine “Società” (1947). His many publications include: Storicità dell’arte classica (1943), Archeologia e cultura (1961), Dal diario di un borghese (1962), Rome: The Center of Power, 500 B.C. to A.D. 200 (1969), Rome: The Late Empire, Roman Art A.D. 200–400 (1970).

The 73rd Venice International Film Festival will be held on the Lido from August 31^st to September 10^th 2016, directed by Alberto Barbera and organized by the Biennale chaired by Paolo Baratta.