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“It is now established that the main function of a festival is to choose what we can and must see from among the huge blind mass of production”. Far from wishing to refute this claim, which may well be true, I feel I must add a few comments. Not marginal comments, however, if it is true that one of the reasons that led me to return to serving the Venice Film Festival, turns its gaze - in cross-eyed fashion - in a different direction. Nor am I referring to what's left of the f...

  Eighty years ago, on the 6th of August 1932 at the Lido di Venezia, on the terrace of the Hotel Excelsior, the first international film festival in the world – conceived and organized by the Biennale di Venezia – was inaugurated. At 9:15 PM, on a screen set up outdoors for the occasion, under sporadic rain showers, it began with a showing of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.Hyde by Rouben Mamoulian. The screening was followed by a grand ball in the Excelsior ballroom. “Stemming di...

La Biennale President: Paolo Baratta and the festival artisitic Director Marco Muller introduce the festival's highlights. ...

  TABLOID (Errol Morris, USA) OK......even for someone who is internet-connected, it is still impossible for me to be physically in more than one place at any given time (please work on that, Steve Jobs.....). As I am sitting typing this at the Montreal World Film Festival, simultaneous events are happening around the world at a pace that is dizzying indeed. Montreal is hot and humid, which is perhaps the weather I could be expect if I was attending that other major internation...

  On my first evening at the Montreal World Film Festival on September 1, my thoughts are going to Venice. Not only because that venerable film festival opens today but because Venice, as both a real place and a metaphor, is a potent symbol in the Polish film viewed this evening in Montreal, which is simply called VENICE.      The film, which is making its International Premiere in the World Competition section here, is written and directed by Jan Jakub Kolski, a vete...

Venice kicks off tomorrow, however, I’m hearing things that the big festivals such as Cannes, Venice, Berlin and Toronto etc are being called the falling stars of the festival circuit and that the whole star-studdied red carpet routine is getting rather dull and boring. This is an interesting point, but not one that I fully agree with – based on my experience of last years Cannes. Although I didnt see many of the in-competition  films as I was doing my research around the film market...