Venice 2005

George Clooney, "Good Night, And Good Luck" Winner of the FIPRESCI Prize

It is always nice to visit Venice. The festival, however, faces problems. It doesn't take place in the city but on the tiny island of Lido . While the festivals of Cannes and Berlin have built up new palaces and facilities to ensure they run smoothly, Venice still uses the palace put up by Vittorio Mussolini, the dictator's son, over 60 years ago, which has almost no surrounding facilities (not to talk about coffee shops or restaurants — you survive from sandwiches). Moreover, the respective government in Rome pulls the strings at the festival. No fest director has stayed more than four years, with each government appointing a new director of its choice — and in Italy governments change with an astonishing frequency. This makes long-term planning of the festival a near impossibility. One can't, however, reproach Marco Mueller, the current director, for that. He can only 'administrate the defects'. He has improved the organization (at least this year projections started on time). He invited far too many Asian films (amongst them restrospectives of Japanese and Chinese cinemas which were worth seeing but impossible to catch), and also invited a considerable selection of European (in particular French and Italian) films. He managed to bring quite a lot of stars to the Lido. But this cannot conceal the fact that the festival needs an overral improvement and revival. Already, a lot of film companies, directors, and critics prefer the Canadian festival of Toronto (starting when Venice is still going on) — and which over the last few years has made a meteoric rise. Next year, Venice will have to face another rivalry: a new festival in Rome, in October, organized under the patronage of Rome's mayor Walter Veltroni, possibly headed by festival veteran Giorgio Gosetti (who organizes the Venice "Authors' Days"), and equipped with the extraordinary budget of seven million Euros. (The fact cannot be ignored that this rivalry is a cultural war between the left-wing Veltroni and the conservative Berlusconi administration of which the Venice festival is a part). To put it another way: if nothing is improved, the 'Biennale Cinema' will slowly sink into the sea, centimeter by centimeter. Klaus Eder

Good Night, And Good Luck by George Clooney got the Critics' Prize (for a film in competition). Details

Reports

Jury President Klaus Eder with Dario de Luca, the Italian distributor of Werner Herzog's film. Photo: Fabio Tommasi.

Venice '05: Well Worth Attending. "The 62nd edition of the Festival was something akin to a triumph considering the bad publicity it received in 2004. The films were by no means poor either," writes Derek Malcolm in his overview on the event, its organization and its films.
The Incorruptibles. Klaus Eder sees George Clooney's film as "a warning and a lesson for the United States of today".
The Wild Blue Yonder. Werner Herzog's "science-fiction-fantasy", built-up of documentary material from the NASA, provoked two critics, Hassouna Mansouri and Gabriele Barrera, to express their enthusiasm.
Intimacy, All That Matters. "In his study of a painful confrontation between husband and wife, Chereau manages to deliver almost every stage that a marriage could go through: anger, frustration, strange passions", writes Esin Kücüktepepinar in her review of Gabrielle.
Kill Baek. With Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, Park Chan-wook ends his trilogy about revenge with brio and blood, confirming an impressive yet provocative talent. Matilde Lorit is enthusiastic about the film.
Swimming Against the Current. "Soderbergh's fifteenth film, one of the hidden treasures of this year's Mostra di cinema, shows in a rough yet tender way the loss of a famous American dynamism", writes Karel Och in his review of Bubble.
The Invisible Weavers Of Our Golden Robes. In five precise and awkwardly beautiful portraits of hard-labourers throughout the world (the third world? the real world?), Working Man's Death shows those people who we barely see any more, and whose risky everyday work ensures our aseptically comfortable lives. Pamela Biénzobas reviews Michael Glawogger's film.
The Moonlit Space of Dreams and Ambitions. Saul Symonds reviews Alexei Fedortchenko's quasi-documentary The First on the Moon, and finds Russian cinema still drawing on the ghosts of its past.

top