Venice Film Fests Celebrates 69 Years of World Cinema

Details

Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Wednesday, 29 August 2012 05:00

Written by Renzo Adler

Established in 1932, The Venice Film Festival (August 29 – September 8, 2012) at the Palazzo del Cinema (Lungomare Marconi, 30126 Venezia VE, Italy), is revered as the oldest running film festival and still retains a certain quiet dignity that is somewhat absent from the hype of Cannes.

Competing this year in the festival is Paul Thomas Anderson’s eagerly awaited The Master, with Philip Seymour Hoffman playing an L. Ron Hubbard style character and putting on his best crazy-face. Also in competition is Olivier Assay’s Something in the Air, a coming of age story set in the political turmoil of 1970’s France and the latest film from sovereign of suspenseful schlock, Brian De Palma, Passion, about the sexy and blood soaked world of office intrigue.

Other films competing are:

• At Any Price (Dir. Ramin Bahrani)
• Bella Addormentata (Dir. Marco Bellocchio)
• La Cinquième Saison (Dir. Peter Brosens, Jessica Woodworth)
• Fill the Void (Dir. Rama Burshtein)
• È Stato Il Figlio (Dir. Daniele Ciprì)
• Un Giorno Speciale (Dir. Francesca Comencini)
• Superstar (Dir. Xavier Giannoli)

The Venice Film Fest also includes many films not in completion. This includes great classics (Ingmar Bergman’s somber Fanny and Alexander and Keisuke Kinoshita’s brilliantly gaudy Carmen Comes Home) and new works of world cinema (Wadjda, Winter of Discontent).

80! is a special retrospective of rare and special films from the archivce of the The Venice Biennale art exhibition (of which the Venice Film Fest is a part of) including Free At Last, a 1968 doccumentary following the last weeks of Dr. Martin Luther King’s life and The Last Night, a Russian film from 1936 about the struggles of a factory worker’s family set during the October Revolution.

While the Venice Film Fest does include some very big name stars and directors, it is a festival more about celebrating the art of cinema rather than the cult of celebrity. Venice has a good mix of European, Asian, and Middle Eastern films, many of which address some pretty weighty issues that are still relevant today, regardless of the setting of the film.

To learn more, go to: http://www.labiennale.org/en/cinema/

69th Venice Film Festival
August 29 – September 8, 2012

Palazzo del Cinema,
Lungomare Marconi
30126 Venezia VE, Italy

• < Prev
• Next >