light on the Venice Film Festival

There are three days left before the winners are announced. Anxious filmmakers walk back and forth in the lobby of the Grand Hotel Excelsior. The golden lion may end up in their neighbour’s bedroom… The most revelers can deceive their impatience at Piccolo Mondo, the pleasantly old-fashioned and oldest nightclub in town. The lagoon quivers as the end of the Venice Film Festival draws near, rival to our Cannes Film Festival and meeting place for American actors before the Oscars. This 80th edition began with a concern – the arrival of Hollywood studios in the midst of a strike by screenwriters -, a controversy – the screenings of films by Polanski and Woody Allen – and a promise: the appearance on the Lido of the most beautiful Italian models. The lion’s share: a story of the Mostra reminds us, the transalpine festivalnever feared provocation or glamour.

Fairly unknown event in France

This documentary by Giuseppe Bucchi and Baptiste Etchegaray, a talented young director who has already made a film about the Césars, rewinds the story of a relatively unknown event in France. It starts with a screening at the Excelsior Hotel in August 1932. Clark Gable, Greta Garbo and others watch Dr Jekyll. The coming to power of the fascists transforms the event into a propaganda tool. Which returns to its post-war fundamentals. The New Wave is soon breaking into the lagoon. Godard, interviewed in 1964, refuses to consider himself a “provocative “. No, his films only awaken those who are asleep ”… The archives parade, commented on by the half-sweet, half-hoarse voice of Carla Bruni. “I worked on the text as if it were a matter of putting music to images “comments the singer.

Wonderful Mastroianni

On screen, Monica Vitti is delighted to talk about cinema from 9 a.m. to midnight. Roberto Rossellini watches young people dance the yéyé on the terrace of his hotel and concludes: “They are right. The stars travel on launches, which moor to the pontoons of the palaces. Do they at least tip the drivers? “When they arrive, there are photographers on one side, journalists on the other, we don’t even have a “thank you” “storm one of them. They reserve their smiles for their admirers, whom an intrigued psychiatrist comes to study for a year. The marvelous Mastroianni does not like this infatuation, which transforms the actors into objects of desire or repulsion. “There’s probably something excessive and unsettling about celebrity, peaking at a festivalsays Carla Bruni on this subject.And think that Mastroianni has known only the professional and civilized press, and not the savagery of social networks. »

nice cast

Canal+, which is no longer a partner of Cannes, is improving its coverage of Venice. The channel has embled a nice cast for this lyrical anthem at the Mostra, which could have analyzed the festival selections and awards more. Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu recounts his emotion on entering the Grand Hôtel des Bains, from Death to Venice. Cate Blanchett Reflects on Her First Screening – “They’ll boo you if they hate the movie“, had terrified a spectator. Actress Alba Rohrwacher ures us that it was on this stage, reward in hand, that she was “most capable of being happy”. The event “escapes the anxiety-provoking rituals of festivals”, believes Isabelle Huppert. Maybe because it’s Italian… And it takes place in a film set: “When you are in Venice, you feel a piece of the history of the world on you, smiles Carla Bruni. It probably makes everything else easier.. »