Italians dominate Venice festival

New films by Bellocchio, Benvenuti, Maresco, Tavarelli and Bertolucci to be screened at Lido

As the oldest and arguably most prestigious film festival in the world, the Mostra del Cinema di Venezia - Venice film festival to most - has proven a worthy testing ground for what is worthy in terms of quality movies. Unlike the Cannes festival, which this year proved disappointing and empty, this year's line-up on the Lido fares much more promising.
Italian films may be the ones to profit most from the absence of big-name auteur directors. From Italy the official selection includes Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers in an out of competition slot, Marco Bellocchio's Buongiorno Notte, Edoardo Winspeare's The Miracle and Paolo Benvenuti's Segreti Di Stato. Elsewhere in the line-up, in the Contro Corrente parallel competition section, there is Daniele Cipri and Franco Maresco's The Return Of Cagliostro, Gianluca Tavarelli's Liberi and the Italian-produced Turkish film Mud (Fango) by Darvish Zaim.
Films from abroad that are in competition include Margarete von Trotta's Rosenstrasse, Christopher Hampton's Imagining Argentina, Tsai Ming Liang's Goodbye Dragon Inn, Carole Lai's Floating Landscape, Amos Gitai's Alila, Michael Winterbottom's Code 46, Srdjan Karanovic's Loving Glances, Bruno Dumont's Twentyninepalms, Alejandro Gonzales Innaritu's 21 Grams, and Manoel De Oliveira's A Talking Picture.
High-profile art house names that are missing from this year's line-up are Emir Kusturica's Hungry Heart (still not ready); Wong Kar Wai's 2046, which is still shooting and is set for a mid-December release in China, which makes it more likely for Berlin; and Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill. One top name Italian director who will not make the parade is Ermanno Olmi, whose Singing Behind The Screens is still not ready.
The second installment of Peter Greenaway's Tulse Luper Suitcases trilogy is also not ready, but part three (Antwerp) is ready, which is causing puzzlement among aficionados. After all, it has only been a matter of months since the first part in this trilogy premiered at the Cannes Film Festival (under the title Part 1: The Moab Story).
It turns out that the reasons that Episode 3 is screening in Venice - without anyone having seen No 2 - is that Greenaway may be in the midst of making a four-part "trilogy." Antwerp, Greenaway's two-hour piece that will screen at a special out-of-competition event attached to the Upstream (Contro Corrente) section of Venice, is neither the second film of the Tulse Luper trilogy, nor is it an unfinished work-in-progress. He has written the Tulse Luper story in 16 "episodes" of different lengths. (Each has a name as well as a number.) These are being combined and released in the form of three feature films, called "parts," the first of which showed in competition in Cannes. The whole project is accompanied by a series of DVDs and a labyrinthine (and still growing) website.
What Venice is to show is an episode, a separate story whose first 40 minutes have already been seen as part of the Cannes film, but whose final 80 minutes comprises of previously unseen material some of which may be used in the second feature, Part 2: From Vaux To The Sea.
Confused? So am I. But let's move on.
One highly anticipated entry is Joy Of Madness by 15-year-old Hana Makhmalbaf, daughter of Iranian director Moshen Makhmalbaf and younger sister of Samira.
A documentary, Joy Of Madness was filmed in Afghanistan and tells the story behind the shoot of Samira Makhmalabaf's At Five In The Afternoon - which played in competition at Cannes earlier this year.
Films competing for the Critics Week's $10,000 prize alongside Joy Of Madness are Indian director Manish Jha's Matru Bhomi, Mr. Butterfly by Korea's Kim Hyeon-Seong; Twist by Canada's Jacob Tierney; Variete Francaise by France's Frederic Videau; Argentina's Ana Y Los Otros by Celina Murga; Singaporean director Royston Tan's Fiftee , and Italian director Salvatore Mereu's Ballo A Tre Passi.
Italy's national critics union (SNCCI) selected eight films this year rather than the usual seven to compete for the top prize. Films in Critics Week will also be able to compete for the Lion of the Future award, a Euros 100,000 prize for the best debut feature among the entire line-up of the Venice Film Festival.
Critics Week jury members will include Respiro actress Valerio Golino and hot Turkish-Italian director Ferzan Ozpetek (Facing Windows ).
Opening the 60th rendition of the festival will be Woody Allen's Anything Else. "I'm looking forward to going to the festival. I've never been to Venice at festival time and the city has been so generous and supportive to me and I love it so much that it will be a great honour," Allen said in a statement.
Anything Else stars Jason Biggs, Christina Ricci, Jeremy Fallon and Danny De Vito in the story of a struggling artist who has an affair with a much younger woman.
The festival previously announced that it will also pay homage to Katharine Hepburn, who died on June 29, 2003, with a special screening of a restored copy of David Lean's Summertime (aka Summer Madness) which is set in Venice.
Heading this year's jury is veteran Italian filmmaker Mario Monicelli who received Venice's Golden Lion award in 1959 for his classic film The Great War. Joining him will be Italian actor Stefano Accorsi (Ignorant Fairies), German director of photography Michael Ballhaus (Goodfellas, Gangs Of New York), and Hong Kong director Ann Hui, whose credits include Boat People and July Rhapsody. French writer-director Pierre Jolivet (Ma Petite Enterprise), U.S. producer Monty Montgomery (Portrait Of A Lady, Wild At Heart), and Spanish actress Assumpta Serna (Matador, Le Intermittenze Del Cuore) will round out the jury.
Meanwhile, Venice's Contro Corrente jury (Upstream) will be presided by French historian and television writer Laure Adler. The other jury members are Italian film academic Vito Amoruso, Egyptian movie critic Samir Farid, Taiwanese actress and singer Rene Liu (Siao Yu, Living Under Cross) and German actor Ulrich Tukur (Amen).

The Venice Film Festival runs August 27 to September 6.

Publication Date: 2003-08-24
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=3079