A much-awaited cinema exhibition which sees the arrival of numerous celebrities and people in Venice these days who will participate in the kermesse after a difficult period caused by the pandemic. Surely this long wait has made the Festival even more interesting and waiting to see the delivery of the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement a Jamie Lee Curtis e Roberto Benigni, we report the films (and directors) in the program that will participate in the Competition and beyond.
This is how Alberto Barbera declares “In everyone's forecasts, autumn 2021 should be the time for the much-desired restart, postponed several times amid general bewilderment. We are no longer so sure, even if we are supported by a great faith in science and in the human ability to react even to the worst misfortunes. Hence the decision to create in the presence and with even greater conviction of theannus horribilis that preceded us, the next Venice Biennale Film Festival, declining the 78th edition that precedes by just one year the celebration of the ninetieth anniversary of his birth, which dates back to August 1932. We will do it under the banner, again once, of a calculated prudence, hurrying slowly, as suggested by the supreme emperor Augustus. That is, without delay, but with caution. And without losing heart, according to the gloss of the poet Nicolas Boileau. Aware of the responsibility that awaits us and of the expectations of many placed on the first festival destined to open the new season of that unwritten calendar that marks the life of cinematographers (said without the derogatory nuance that sometimes accompanies the use of the term).”
The personalities called to be part of the Jury of the Competition of Venezia 78 I'm:
Bong Joon-ho - president (South Korea), Oscar-winning director and screenwriter, is one of the most original voices in contemporary cinema. He is the author of milestones of Korean cinema such as Memories of Murder (2003) The Host (2006) and Mother (2009). You obtained the final international consecration in 2019 thanks to P, winner of a long line of prestigious awards including the Palme d'Or at Cannes, a Golden Globe, a Critics Choice Award, two BAFTAs and four Academy Awards® for Best Film, Best International Film, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.
Saverio Costanzo (Italy), director and screenwriter, presented in Venice The solitude of prime numbers (2010), his third film, based on the homonymous novel by Paolo Giordano, as well as Hungry Hearts (2014) with Alba Rohrwacher and Adam Driver, who won the two Volpi Cups for best male and female performances. You then directed the Italian adaptation of In Treatment season 1, 2 and 3, and the HBO series The brilliant friend, also written and conceived by him, based on Elena Ferrante's best sellers, presented in Venice.
Virginia Efira (Belgium/France), actress, played All of Victoria's men, presented in 2016 in Cannes at the Critics' Week, receiving critical acclaim. He then took part in the award-winning It (2016) by Paul Verhoeven et al An impossible love (2018) by Catherine Corsini, for which she was nominated for best actress at the César. In the same edition of the César she received a second nomination, this time as a supporting role, in the hit comedy 7 men to soak (2018) by Gilles Lellouche. In 2019 she starred in comedy drama Sibyl by Justine Triet, in competition at Cannes, where she returned in 2021 as the protagonist of the new film by Paul Verhoeven, Benedetta
Cynthia Erivo (Great Britain) is a stage and film actress, singer and composer. For her portrayal in the show The purple color garnered numerous accolades including a Tony Award, a Grammy Award, and a Daytime Emmy Award. In 2018 she made her film debut with 7 unknown in El Royale by Drew Goddard. In the same year she starred in Widows - Criminal legacy by Steve McQueen, presented in Toronto. In 2019 she was the protagonist of Harriet by Kasi Lemmons, for which he garnered two Golden Globe and two Academy Award nominations®, in both cases both for best leading actress and for best song, Stand Up, of which she is co-author. In 2020 she played Detective Holly Gibney in the HBO miniseries The OutsiderBased on the Stephen King novel of the same name. In 2021 she was Aretha Franklin in the third season of the series Genius, for which she was nominated for an Emmy Award.
Sarah Gadon (Canada), Canadian actress and producer, gained international exposure thanks to A Dangerous Method by David Cronenberg, presented in competition in Venice in 2011. He continued his collaboration with Cronenberg in the following Cosmopolis (2012) and Maps to the Stars (2014). He has received the Canadian Screen Award for his roles in The other Grace (2017), acclaimed Netflix series, ed ENEMY (2013) by Denis Villeneuve. His performances in the film were critically acclaimed The Moth Diaries (2011) by Mary Harron, The girl in the painting (2013) by Amma Asante My life with John F. Donovan (2018) by Xavier Dolan e Black bear (2020) by Lawrence Levine.
Alexander Nanau (Romania), one of the most significant directors of Romanian cinema, has so far directed four documentaries presented in the most important international festivals. In 2019 he presented out of competition in Venice Collective, acclaimed by international critics, which won the European Film Award for Best Documentary, as well as a BAFTA nomination and, for the first time in the history of Romanian cinema, two historic Oscar nominations® as best international film and best documentary.
Chloe Zhao (China) is a Chinese director, screenwriter, editor and producer. She was born in Beijing and also raised in Brighton, England. After moving to the United States, she studied Political Science at Mount Holyoke College and Film Production at NYU. Of her Her film debut, Songs My Brothers Taught Me, was presented in 2015 at Sundance. His second film The Rider, was in the Cannes Quinzaine in 2017 and obtained the Art Cinema Award. His most recent work nomadland, had its preview in Venice in 2020, where it won the Golden Lion. The film and Chloé Zhao achieved huge success by winning Golden Globes®, BAFTA, DGA, PGA Awards and 3 Oscars®, for best director, leading actress and best film. Chloé Zhao directed and co-wrote Eternals (Marvel Studios), scheduled for release on November 5th.
The jury Venezia 78 will award the following official prizes to the feature films in competition: Golden Lion for best film, Silver Lion – Grand Jury Prize, Silver Lion – Award for Best Director, Coppa Volpi for the best female performance, Coppa Volpi for best male performance, Special Jury Prize, Best Screenplay Award, Marcello Mastroianni Award to an emerging young actor or actress.
La Jury section international Horizons It's composed by:
Jasmila Žbanic - president (Bosnia and Herzegovina), director and screenwriter, was born in Sarajevo in 1974. At the beginning she worked as a puppeteer and as a clown. With his debut feature film The hunchback won the Golden Bear at the 2006 Berlinale, as well as the American Film Institute award and others. Her films, presented at the most important festivals and distributed all over the world, were produced by Deblokada, an artistic association founded by her. In 2020 she presented in competition in Venice Where are you going, Aida? written and directed by her, nominated for an Oscar® and the BAFTAs for best international film.
Mona Fastvold (Norway), director and screenwriter, directed her first feature film The Sleepwalker in 2014, which premiered at Sundance. The film is co-written by Brady Corbet with whom he also collaborates on The childhood of a boss (2015), winner of the Orizzonti award for best direction and the Venice Opera Prima prize “Luigi De Laurentiis” in Venice. He wrote the screenplays for Vox Lux (2018), together with director Brady Corbet, and by The Mustangs(2019), together with director Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre. In 2020 she presented in competition in Venice World to Come.
Shahram Mokri (Iran), director, screenwriter and film critic, directed his first feature film in 2008, Ashkan, the Charmed Ring and other Stories, presented at the Busan Festival. In 2013 the next Fish & Cat won the Orizzonti Special Prize for innovative content in Venice. In 2018 he presented Invasion in Berlin. In 2020 he returned to Venice with his third film, Careless Crime. The film earned the Silver Hugo Award at the Chicago Film Festival.
Josh Siegel (USA) is curator of the film section of the MoMA in New York, for which he has organized numerous exhibitions. In 2007 he received MoMA's Lee Tenenbaum Award. For the MoMA he has dealt with the acquisition of many films and numerous art installations, which have become part of the museum's permanent collection. Josh Siegel co-founded To Save and Project: The MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation, a festival showcasing restored films by filmmakers, distributors, studios and archives from around the world. Siegel currently serves on the board of Cinema Tropical, a non-profit dedicated to Latin American cinema in the United States. He is the author of numerous publications, essays, catalogs and monographs, and has been a member of the jury at various international festivals.
Nadia Terranova (Italy), writer, is the author of numerous novels and children's books including: The years upside down (Einaudi 2015, Bagutta Opera Prima award and The Bridge Book Award), Goodbye ghosts (Einaudi 2018, finalist for the Strega 2019 award) e Homer has been here (Bompiani 2019, selected in the dozen of the Strega Ragazzi Prize). His books have been translated all over the world. You collaborate with various newspapers including la Repubblica, Il Foglio and edit the "Sirens" column on Vanity Fair.
The jury Horizons will award – without the possibility of ex-aequo – the following prizes: Horizons Award for best filmHorizons Award for best direction, Orizzonti Jury Special Prize, Orizzonti Prize for the best female performance, Horizons Award for best male performance, Horizons Award for best screenplayHorizons Award for best short film.
Venice First Work Award "Luigi De Laurentiis"
La Jury international of Venice Opera Prima Award "Luigi De Laurentiis" - Lion of the Future, It's composed by:
Uberto Pasolini - president (Italy), director, screenwriter and producer, made his directorial debut with Merchant (2008), winner of numerous international awards. Still Life (2013) won the award for best director in the Orizzonti section, in Venice in 2013. His most recent film is Nowhere Special, with James Norton, also presented in Venice in the Horizons section in 2020. Pasolini founded Red Wave Films in 1993, a film production company with which he produced the film in 1997 The Full Monty, extraordinary success with audiences all over the world.
Martin Schweighofer (Austria), film critic, teacher and festival director, from 1992 he directed the Salzburg Diagonale film festival for three years and was then executive director of the AFC Austrian Films. From 2013 to 2019 he was first vice-president and then president of European Film Promotion (EFP). In the same years he taught at the Vienna University of Applied Arts (Film, TV and Media Production) focusing on the international film market and film festivals. He is a member of the European Film Academy and has participated as a juror at many international film festivals.
Amalia Ulman (Argentina), artist and director, has presented installations and video art works at the Tate Modern, the New Museum, the Frieze Art Fair, the Evelyn Yard and the Whitechapel Gallery. She has been dubbed “Instagram's first artist” following a Excellences & Perfections (2014), a four-month performance shared on the social network. His debut feature film The planet, was critically acclaimed and premiered at Sundance in January 2021.
The Jury of Venice Opera Prima Award will assign, without the possibility of ex aequo, among all the first feature films present in the various competitive sections of the Exhibition (Official Selection and Independent and Parallel Sections), the Lion of the Future – Venice Opera Prima Prize “Luigi De Laurentiis”, and a prize of 100.000 USD, made available by Filmauro, which will be divided equally between the director and the producer.
These are the films in Competition (in alphabetical order by director)
MADRES PARALELAS – OPENING FILM
di PEDRO ALMODOVAR
with Penélope Cruz, Milena Smit, Israel Elejalde, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, Julieta Serrano, Rossy De Palma / Spain / 120'
MONA LISA AND THE BLOOD MOON
di ANA LILY AMIRPOUR
with Jeon Jong-seo, Kate Hudson, Craig Robinson, Evan Whitten, Ed Skrein / USA / 106'
AN OTHER WORLD
di STÉPHANE BRIZÉ
with Vincent Lindon, Sandrine Kiberlain, Anthony Bajon, Marie Drucker / France / 96'
THE POWER OF THE DOG
di JANE CHAMPION
with Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons, Kodi Smit-McPhee / New Zealand, Australia / 136'
LATIN AMERICA
di DAMIANO D'INNOCENZO, FABIO D'INNOCENZO
with Elio Germano, Astrid Casali, Sara Ciocca, Maurizio Lastrico, Carlotta Gamba, Federica Pala, Filippo Dini, Massimo Wertmüller / Italy, France / 90'
THE EVENT
di AUDREY DIWAN
with Anamaria Vartolomei, Kacey Mottet-Klein, Luàna Bajrami, Louise Orry Diquero, Louise Chevillotte, Pio Marmaï, Sandrine Bonnaire, Anna Mouglalis, Leonor Oberson, Fabrizio Rongione / France / 100'
OFFICIAL COMPETITION
di GASTÓN DUPRAT, MARIAN COHN
with Penélope Cruz, Antonio Banderas, Oscar Martínez, José Luis Gómez, Nagore Aranburu, Irene Escolar, Manolo Solo, Pilar Castro, Koldo Olabarri / Spain, Argentina / 114'
THE HOLE
di MICHELANGELO FRAMMARTINO
with Nicola Lanza, Antonio Lanza, Leonardo Larocca, Claudia Candusso, Mila Costi, Carlos Jose Crespo / Italy, France, Germany / 93'
SUN DOWN
di MICHEL FRANCO
with Tim Roth, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Iazua Larios, Henry Goodman, Albertine Kotting McMillan, Samuel Bottomley / Mexico, France, Sweden / 83'
LOST ILLUSIONS
di XAVIER GIANNOLI
with Benjamin Voisin, Cécile de France, Vincent Lacoste, Xavier Dolan, Salomé Dewaels, Jeanne Balibar, Gérard Depardieu, André Marcon, Louis-Do de Lencquesaing / France / 144'
THE LOST DAUGHTER
di MAGGIE GYLLENHAAL
with Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley, Dakota Johnson, Ed Harris, Peter Sarsgaard, Paul Mescal, Dagmara Dominczyk, Alba Rohrwacher / Greece, USA, UK, Israel / 121'
SPENCER
di PABLO LARRAIN
with Kristen Stewart, Timothy Spall, Jack Farthing, Sean Harris, Sally Hawkins / Germany, UK / 111'
FREAKS OUT
di GABRIEL MAINETTI
with Claudio Santamaria, Aurora Giovinazzo, Pietro Castellitto, Giancarlo Martini, Giorgio Tirabassi, Max Mazzotta, Franz Rogowski / Italy, Belgium / 141'
HERE I LAUGH
di MARIO MARTON
with Toni Servillo, Maria Nazionale, Cristiana Dell'Anna, Antonia Truppo, Eduardo Scarpetta, Roberto De Francesco, Lino Musella, Paolo Pierobon, Gianfelice Imparato, Iaia Forte / Italy, Spain / 133'
ON THE JOB: THE MISSING 8
di ERIK MATTI
with John Arcilla, Dennis Trillo, Dante Rivero / Philippines / 208'
ŻEBY NIE BYŁO ŚLADÓW (LEAVE NO TRACES)
di JAN P. MATUSZYŃSKI
with Tomasz Ziętek, Sandra Korzeniak, Jacek Braciak, Robert Więckiewicz, Sebastian Pawlak, Agnieszka Grochowska, Mateusz Górski / Poland, France, Czech Republic / 160'
KAPITAN VOLKONOGOV BEZHAL (CAPTAIN VOLKONOGOV ESCAPED)
di NATASHA MERKULOVA, ALEXEY CHUPOV
with Yuriy Borisov / Russia, Estonia, France / 126'
THE CARD COUNTER
di PAUL SCHRADER
with Oscar Isaac, Tiffany Haddish, Tye Sheridan, Willem Dafoe / USA, UK, China / 112'
IT WAS THE HAND OF GOD
di Paolo Sorrentino
with Filippo Scotti, Toni Servillo, Teresa Saponangelo, Marlon Joubert, Luisa Ranieri, Renato Carpentieri, Massimiliano Gallo, Betti Pedrazzi, Biagio Manna, Ciro Capano / Italy / 130'
VIDBLYSK (REFLECTION)
di VALENTYN VASYANOVYCH
with Roman Lutskyi, Nika Myslytska, Nadia Levchenko, Andriy Rymaruk, Igor Shulha / Ukraine / 125'
BOX
di LORENZO VIGAS
with Hernán Mendoza, Hatzín Navarrete / Mexico, USA / 92'
The Golden Lion will go to the American actress Jamie Lee Curtis and the director, actor and screenwriter Roberto Benigni
The delivery of Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement a Jamie Lee Curtis will take place Wednesday September 8th of Sala Grande of the Cinema Palace (Lido di Venezia), before the screening out of competition di Halloween kills, Directed by David gordon green and interpreted by Jamie Lee Curtis, presented by Universal Pictures, Miramax, Blumhouse Productions and Trancas International Films. Halloween kills will be in theaters on October 15.
“I am incredibly honored to receive this award from the Venice Biennale Film Festival,” she said Jamie Lee Curtis. “It seems impossible to me that I have been in the film business for so long as to receive recognition for her career, and that this happens today, with Halloween kills, is especially significant to me. Halloween — and my partnership with Laurie Strode — launched and sustained my career, and it's truly a gift that these films have spawned a new franchise that is loved by audiences around the world. Italian cinema has always honored and exalted the genre that has marked my career, so I couldn't be more proud and happy to accept this award from the Venice Film Festival, from Laurie and all the brave heroines in the world who face head on high insurmountable obstacles and who refuse to give up”.
The director Alberto Barbera said: “Jamie Lee Curtis belongs to that rarefied group of Hollywood actresses and actors capable of offering the most convincing personification of all those qualities that represent the soul of great world cinema. Directly descended from the aristocracy of American cinema, as the daughter of two unforgettable stars such as Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, she is the natural incarnation of the star capable of stepping into roles as a versatile and available actress, with great charisma and uncommon personality. All of these qualities, combined with her work as a writer of children's books and her philanthropic commitment, have cemented her status as an international artist over time. Her four-decade-long career began with her meteoric debut in horror Halloween, which has become a classic, and includes more than forty films, reminding us that true talent, combined with intelligence, irony, perseverance and sheer grit are the hallmarks of this true star. In addition to the legendary saga of Halloween, Jamie Lee Curtis' career has spanned every cinematic genre, from memorable and beloved comedies Knives Out, A Fish Called Wanda, An Armchair for Two, Freaky Friday, to action movies True Lies e Blue Steel, up to the dramas The tailor from Panama, Dad, I found a friend e Love forever. Her work reveals an artist who calibrates tone and style with impeccable skill and grace”.
Also: a Roberto Benigni il Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement of 78. International Film Festival from Venice (1 September - 11 September 2021).
Roberto Benigni, in accepting the proposal he declared: “My heart is filled with joy and gratitude. It is an immense honor to receive such a high recognition for my work from the Venice International Film Festival”.
About this recognition, the Director Alberto Barbera declares: "Since its inception, which took place under the banner of an innovative and disrespectful wave of rules and traditions, Roberto Benigni he established himself in the panorama of Italian entertainment as a figure of reference, unprecedented and without equal. Alternating his appearances on theater stages, film sets and television studios with surprising results each time, he has imposed himself on everyone by virtue of his exuberance and vehemence, the generosity with which he gives himself to the public and the passionate joyfulness that constitutes the figure perhaps more original than his creations. With admirable eclecticism, without ever renouncing to be himself, he went from playing the part of one of the most extraordinary comedians in the rich gallery of Italian performers, to those of a memorable director capable of making films of enormous popular impact, for ultimately transform into the most appreciated interpreter and popularizer of Dante's 'Divine Comedy'. Few artists have been able to blend his explosive comedy like him, often accompanied by irreverent satire, with admirable skills as an interpreter - at the service of great directors such as Federico Fellini, Matteo Garrone and Jim Jarmusch - as well as a compelling and refined literary exegete " .
