Brian De Palma receives the Jaeger-LeCoultre Glory to the Filmmaker 2015 Award.

In few days the 72nd Venice International Film Festival will start. From September 2nd and for 11 days Venice will host the annual appointment of the cinema. As already announced, the pre-opening will take place on September the 2nd in the Sala Darsena (starting at 8:30 pm) with the screening of The Merchant of Venice (1969) and Otello (1951) by Orson Welles.

The Biennale di Venezia and Jaeger-LeCoultre has announced that the great American director Brian De Palma will receive the Jaeger-LeCoultre Glory to the Filmmaker 2015 Award, dedicated to personalities who have made particularly original contributions to contemporary cinema. The award will be given on September 9th at 9.30 pm in the Sala Grande of the Palazzo del Cinema during the 72nd Venice International Film Festival (September 2-12, 2015), directed by Alberto Barbera and organized by the Biennale chaired by Paolo Baratta.

Following the ceremony, the 72nd Film Festival will present the world premiere, Out of Competition, of the documentary De Palma (109’) by Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow. The film grew out of the two directors’ spending time with Brian De Palma for over ten years. It’s an intimate conversation between filmmakers, telling his six decade long career, his life, and his filmmaking process.

Regarding this award, the Director of the Festival Alberto Barbera declared, “The child of an artistic era (the ‘70s) full of innovative ferment, Brian De Palma has made a name for himself as one of the most skillful directors in constructing perfect narrative mechanics with great creative freedom, experimenting with new technical solutions, rejecting the classic rules of the language, abandoning himself to aesthetic virtuosity, and celebrating his favorite authors. When watching a movie by Brian De Palma, we revert to being basic spectators. Although our eyes are wide open to avoid falling into the trap, we know full well we’re bound to fall into it anyway.”

With no doubts, on September 30th Al Pacino has been the day’s special guest star at the 71st Venice Film Festival

The 74-year-old Hollywood legend looked fit and healthy, arriving once again in Venice smiling. The American actor attended the red carpet of Venice Lido for two different films: Barry Levinson’s out-of-competition The Humbling and David Gordon Green’s competition entry Manglehorn. In both films he plays the leading role, a stressed and depressed man, giving the spectators a great performance as always.

The Humbling
The humbling, which runs in competition, is based on Philip Roth’s novel and adapted by Buck Henry. Despite the director and the main protagonist, Hollywood stars, the film was made on a highly contained budget. It’s the story of an aging theater actor at a crossroads (Al Pacino) who has a love affair with a young woman half his age, played by Greta Gerwig. Actually, it offers an intense analysis of the life of an actor in crisis which can be also seen as an analysis of the human being.

She’s funny that way by the great Peter Bogdanovich acclaimed at 71st Venice Film Festival.

Finally a bit of irony and a fair amount of laughs at the 71st Venice Film Festival elicited by the Out of Competition “She’s funny that way”. That’s the new film by Peter Bogdanovich who comes back after a 14-year absence with an enthusiastic Sophisticaded Comedy which has been acclaimed at the festival thanks to some genuinely funny performances, lots of surprises and coincidences till the inevitable happy ending.

With no doubts actors and characters leave their marks in the fizzy movie: the young call girl (Imogen Poots) who ends up in the hotel room of the charming director Arnold Albertson (Owen Wilson) who offers the girl 30.000 $ to stop turning tricks and follow her dream to become an actress, the strange therapist with a compulsion to share intimate details about her clients (Jennifer Aniston) and the british actor whose love towards the director’s wife (Kathryn Hahn) is not reciprocated. In other words, a mix of funny characters that made people laugh.

99 Homes – film in competition

Another international star arrived in Venice Lido this morning: Andrew Garfield. The actor of “The Amazing Spider-Man” plays in 99 Homes, another great film directed by Ramin Raharani which has been presented for the first time on the screen in competition at the 71st Venice Film Festival. The movie stars Andrew Garfield as an evicted construction worker who sells his soul to the devil — or at least to Michael Shannon’s real estate agent — and accepts a job evicting other struggling souls to earn enough money to get his family home back. A bit conventional, maybe, but with an outstanding screenplay and a great performance of the actors.

As already said, the president of the International Jury for the 71st Venice Film Festival is Alexandre Desplat, the famous film composer well-known for his many film scores of success.

The jury includes other eight great personalities, actors, directors, screenwriters and artists who will award the Silver and the Golden Lion at the 71st Venice Film Festival. Here the members of the international Jury.

Tim Roth, the British actor known for his unforgettable performance in famous film such as “Pulp Fiction” and “La leggenda del pianista sull’oceano”;

Joan Chen, Chinese actress and director who was in the cast of Lust by Ang Lee, the film that received the Golden Lion in Venice Film Festival 2007;

Philip Gröning, who won the Special Jury Prize last year with his film “The Police Officer’s Wife”;

Jessica Hausner, Austrian director;

Jhumpa Lahiri, Indian-American novelist who won the Pulitzer prize with his first work, the short stories collection “Interpreter of Maladies” (1999);

Sandy Powell, the award-winning British costume designer. She won numerous Oscars for many renowned film such as “Shakespeare in Love” by John Madden, “The Aviator” by Martin Scorsese, “The Young Victoria” by Jean-Marc Vallée and a two BAFTA for “Velvet Goldmine” by Todd Haynes and again “The Young Victoria”;

Elia Suleiman, Palestian director who won the Best First Film Prize with his “Chronicle of a Disappearance” at Venice Film Festival 1996

Carlo Verdone, Italian actor and director who will also receive the Robert Bresson Prize.

For the opening night of the 71st Venice Film Festival Iñárritu’s new film: Birdman.

Birdman or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance, directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu will be the opening film of the 71st Venice Film Festival (August 27th – September 6th 2014). The film stars Michael Keaton, main protagonist, along with Zach Galifianakis, Edward Norton, Andrea Riseborough, Amy Ryan, Emma Stone and Naomi Watts and the world premiere will be screened in competition on August 27th in the Sala Grande of the Palazzo del Cinema at the Lido, following the opening ceremony hosted.

Birdman is a black comedy where Keaton plays an actor famous for portraying an iconic superhero who is trying to mount a Broadway play. In the days before the opening night, he battles his ego and attempts to recover his family, his career, and himself.

Alejandro G. Iñárritu made his breakthrough in 2000 with the film Amores Perros which received an Oscar nomination for best foreign film and won the Semaine de la Critique prize at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2003 Iñárritu directed 21 Grams starring Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro and Naomi Watts. The film participated in the 60th Venice Film Festival where Penn won the Coppa Volpi for Best Actor, whereas Naomi Watts and Benicio Del Toro received an Oscar nomination for their performances. In 2006, he directed Babel, the last film of his trilogy, receiving the prize for best director at the 58th Cannes Film Festival. The film also received seven Oscar nominations including Best Picture and Director and won the Oscar for best original soundtrack. It also received seven Golden Globes nominations and won the prize for Best Motion Picture – Drama. In 2007 the director was a member of the International Jury of the 64th Venice Film Festival’s Competition. In 2010 he presented his film Biutiful in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival, where Javier Bardem won the prize for Best Actor. Biutiful received an Oscar nomination for best foreign film, and Bardem was nominated for best actor.

Want to know all about exhibitions, cultural events and much more in Venice? Our magazine Visit Venice Spring Summer 2014 is online!

Inside you will find all the exhibitions, cultural and sport events to not be missed in May and June 2014, as well as suggestions for your day trips.

The most highly awaited event is definitely the 14th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, but other remarkable events enlive the venetian scenery such as the Irving Penn exhibition at Palazzo Grassi and the Carlo Saraceni exhibition at the Gallerie dell’Accademia (Academy Galleries).
Venice will welcome you also with his folklore and traditions: discover the Vogalonga and the Festa della Sensa, the most important events to be held in this period in the lagoon.

Take a look to our magazine Visit Venice Spring Summer 2014 from the platform issue.com

You can download it FOR FREE at this website
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The films of Orizzonti Section will be available for viewing around the world in streaming

For its 70th edition, the Venice Film Festival from 28 August to 7 September at the Lido also goes digital, making it possible to watch some films in streaming from any computer. The no less than 17 feature films and 14 short films that animate the Orizzonti section, and represent the most innovative aesthetic and expressive trends in world cinema, can be seen by the public in streaming thanks to the Web Theatre. Screenings will be held in conjunction with the official presentations of the films in the Lagoon. 

Tickets for these shows are already on sale online (€4) The capacity of the Web Theatre is 500 seats and screenings, which will be unique for each of the scheduled films, will be posted on a protected site operated by Festival Scope on behalf of the Venice Film Festival. 

70 Future Reloaded 70 filmmakers from around the world have been invited to create a short film for Venice Film Festival

For the seventieth anniversary of the Venice Film Festival, 70 renowned directors have been asked to make a short film: 70 – Future Reloaded

On the occasion of the 70th edition of the Venice International Film Festival, the Biennale has launched an extraordinary project called 70 – Future Reloaded: 70 filmmakers from around the world have been invited to create a short film lasting between 60 and 90 seconds to celebrate the anniversary. All short films will then be screened during this year’s Film Festival in Venice, which takes place at the Lido from 28 August to 7 September 2013.

Naturally, those taking part will be great directors, either established or young directors with great talent, who have participated at least once during the past two decades in one of the previous editions of the Venice Film Festival. Future Reloaded is both a collective tribute to the Festival (the first festival in the world to reach the milestone of 70 editions) and a reflection on the future of cinema, filtered through the personal sensitivity of each director.

The list of directors participating in the initiative is constantly being updated and you can see it on the Biennale site at this address. The list includes Bernardo Bertolucci, Paul Schrader, Shekhar Kapur, Abbas Kiarostami, Isabel Coixet and Walter Salles.

Arthouse films and documentaries competing for the Leone d’oro (Golden Lion) at the Venice Film Festival

This year the  Venice Film Festival, now in its 70th edition, offers a rich and varied program of arthouse films. Expected at the Venice Lido are great international movie stars of the calibre of George Clooney, James Franco, Zac Efron, Matt Damon  and Scarlett Johansson.

 21 films and documentaries are vying for the Golden Lion prize at the 70th Venice Film Festival.

Among the competing titles standing out from the competition are the latest works from  Terry Gilliam (“The Zero Theorem”), Stephen Frears (“Philomena”), Philippe Garrel (“La jalousie”), Errol Morris (“The Unknown Known”) and the new animated film by the Japanese master Hayao Miyazaki “Kaze Tachinu.” Great expectations for the surprise directors: James Franco with Child of God, based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy, Kelly Reichardt with “Night Moves” and the young Canadian director Xavier Dolan with “Tom à la ferme”, in the running for the Queer Lion, the Golden Lion for the best gay film at the 70th Venetian event.

ES-STOUH (LES TERRASSES) of Merzak Allouache (Algerie, France)

L’INTREPIDO di Gianni Amelio (Italia)

MISS VIOLENCE of Alexandros Avranas (Greek)

TRACKS of John Curran (UK, Australia)

VIA CASTELLANA BANDIERA of Emma Dante (Italy, Suisse, France)

TOM À LA FERME of Xavier Dolan (Canada, France)

CHILD OF GOD of James Franco (Usa)

PHILOMENA of Stephen Frears (UK)

LA JALOUSIE of Philippe Garrel (France)

THE ZERO THEOREM of Terry Gilliam (UK, Usa)

ANA ARABIA of Amos Gitai (Israel, France)

UNDER THE SKIN of Jonathan Glazer (UK, Usa)

JOE of David Gordon Green (Usa)

DIE FRAU DES POLIZISTEN ogPhilip Groning (Germany)

PARKLAND of Peter Landesman (Usa)

KAZE TACHINU of Hayao Miyazaki (Giappone) 

THE UNKNOWN KNOWN of Errol Morris (Usa)- docufilm

NIGHT MOVES of Kelly Reichardt (Usa)

SACRO GRA of Gianfranco Rosi (Italia) – docu film

JIAOYOU (STRAY DOGS) of Ming-Liang Tsai (Taipei , France)