“The exhibition was never separated from current events: testimonies of the pain and life that affects each of us were represented on the screen. These days in the halls there has been a journey of knowledge of the world’.
With the words of the President of the Venice Biennale, Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, the 81st edition of the Venice International Film Festival comes to a close. A journey that has led this edition, which ended yesterday with the awards ceremony, to cut new goals and set new records with numbers and audience appreciation on the rise.
The numbers
The Festival, inaugurated this year on 27 August and directed by film critic Alberto Barbera, recorded 94,703 tickets sold (+14% on the 2023 edition) and 13,866 accreditations withdrawn (+6.5%). 70 million euros in revenuebetween direct and induced, against an investment of 23 million. Until yesterday, there were 21 films in competition, of which five were Italian, 83 in total with those out of competition.
History
The Mostra Internazionale d’Arte Cinematografica is the oldest film festival in the world. The first edition of the Festival (6-21 August 1932) was held as part of the 18th Venice Biennale, under the leadership of Count Giuseppe Volpi di Misurata, President of the Biennale, Antonio Maraini, Secretary General, and Luciano De Feo, Secretary General of the International Institute for Educational Cinema in Rome. De Feo was, in fact, the first director and selector. The national authorities approved what is considered the first international film festival. The 1932 edition was held entirely on the terrace of the Hotel Excelsior on the Venice Lido, and although there was no competition, it presented films that would become cinema classics. The first film screened in the history of the Festival, at 9.15 p.m. on 6 August 1932, was Rouben Mamoulian’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It quickly gained popularity, so much so that from 1935 it became an annual event.
Today, the Venice Film Festival is a highly prestigious event that each year offers a rich programme of internationally renowned works, attracting some of the most celebrated contemporary directors and actors to the Lido di Venezia. It thus maintains the tradition of combining a high artistic quality with the glamour that has always characterised the event. And also this year numerous stars attended the previews of their films, paraded on the Lido’s red carpet and enchanted the public. From the Pitt-Clooney duo to Nicole Kidman, from Tim Burton, accompanied by our very own Monica Bellucci, whose film Beetlejuice opened this year’s edition, to Kevin Costner. From Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga, co-stars in the new chapter of the Joker saga, to Angelina Jolie paired with Pierfrancesco Favino in ‘Maria’, a biographical film on the last years of the life of the divine Maria Callas. And again Jude Law, the very young Jenna Ortega, Winona Ryder, Michael Keaton, Julianne Moore and many other national and international artists.
The winners
The international jury, led by French actress Isabelle Huppert and composed of 9 personalities, including director and screenwriter Giuseppe Tornatore, after 12 days of screenings awarded the famous Golden Lion and the other official prizes of the Festival at yesterday’s closing ceremony. Pedro Almodovar’s “The Room Next Door” won the Golden Lion for Best Film in Competition. The Silver Lion – Grand Jury Prize went to the Italian film ‘Vermiglio’ by Laura Delpero. The Coppa Volpi for Best Actor was awarded to Vincent Lindon for ‘Jouer avec le feu’ and Nicol Kidman for ‘Babygirl’, while the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Emerging Actor went to Paul Kircher for ‘Leurs enfants après eux’.
Award-winning and non-award-winning films will now have to undergo the trials of theatres and box offices. It is well known how the industry has been in trouble for years, how the cinemas are increasingly empty, tried, among other things, by the proliferation of digital platforms. It is uncertain how cinema, an art that condenses all others in itself, will be able to safeguard its social side as well, as an art capable not only of conveying messages and meanings, but also of gathering around it. However, the evidence of Venice tells of a cinema capable of facing the challenges of the future and able to create debate, by staging art, around the great themes of the present. This journey towards knowledge of the world continues. And it will land again on the shores of the Lido next year.