Italian President Giorgio Napolitano and Culture Minister Dario Franceschini will be in the front row cheering on Italian cinema as the world's oldest cinema fest opens in Venice Wednesday night.
Napolitano, a noted cinephile, has gone on record as
supporting domestic movies against the onslaught of Hollywood.
Another cheerleader is Franceschini, who on Wednesday
recalled recent government moves to increase tax breaks for
cultural cinema and keep historic cinemas open.
Arriving in Venice Franceshini said he was optimistic about
the future of Italian cinema.
"It's a bright season, and after a string of international
successes we have no fewer than three Italian films in
competition, by Martone, Monzi and Costanzo".
Relentlessly upbeat, the minister added: "Italian cinema
does not has just a glorious past, but also a very glorious
present and future".
He also stressed that the Venice fest was a "virtuous
model" of exemplary integration between the public and private
sectors.
The trio vying for the Golden Lion at the 71st fest have
been touted as the most impressive Italian offering in years,
giving Italy a chance to have a two-year winning streak for the
Lido's highest prize.
They include a keenly awaited biopic of Italy's greatet
poet after Dante, Giacomo Leopardi.
Following Italy's win last year for the film Sacro GRA,
this year's competition from Italy unfolds between Mario
Martone's 19th-century drama about Leopardi, Il Giovane Favoloso
(The Fabulous Young Man) starring Elio Germano; a screen
adaptation of the book Black Souls directed by Francesco Munzi;
and Saverio Costanzo's Hungry Hearts, starring Adam Driver and
Alba Rohrwacher.
Martone's film centres on Marche-born poet Giacomo
Leopardi, known for his legendary pessimism and immortal odes,
and Italy's most anthologised poet after the Divine Comedy bard,
played here by Germano in the spirit of an anti-conformist
rebel.
The title comes from a short story about the precocious and
prodigiously gifted Leopardi, born in the Marche village of
Recenati, by Anna Maria Ortese.
Hungry Hearts takes place in New York City, where a couple
battles over their son's diet.
In the film, the mother, played by Rohrwacher, insists on
vegan fare, but the father, played by Driver, has to intervene
when their son eventually becomes ill.
The third film in the Italian lineup, Black Souls, tackles
the contemporary state of the Calabrian mafia, known as the
'Ndrangheta.
Black Souls is based on the eponymous book by Gioacchino
Ciriaco, and tells the tale of a farmer's three sons, each of
whom crosses paths with the life of crime in a different way.
Luigi is an international drug trafficker, Rocco is an
adopted son from Milan who is also a businessman with Mafia
money, and the third and oldest brother Luciano stays home,
raising the family's goats.
Each of the three competing films is said to have a good
chance at the prize.
A win would place Italy halfway to another four-year
winning streak like the one from the heyday of 1960s Italian
cinema, when films by the likes of Michelangelo Antonioni and
Luchino Visconti took a Golden Lion home every year from 1963 to
1966.
Among the other highlights from Italy is the premiere of
Italy In a Day, a "collective cinema experiment" put together by
Italian Oscar-winning director and screenwriter Gabriele
Salvatores.
Festival director Alberto Barbera has admitted to not
knowing much about the younger generation of talent that will
grace the red carpet.
"The young people ask for actors like Adam Driver or Emma
Stone, that few adults know about. Meanwhile, having Catherine
Deneuve here is something that the kids certainly won't even
notice," said Barbera.
At the 71st edition of the film festival, running through
September 6th, paparazzi will clamor at the Lido for shots of
Stone with beau Andrew Garfield, her costar in Spiderman, star
of the much-anticipated film 99 Homes by director Ramin Bahrani.
Other stars with films at the festival this year include
Pacino, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Ethan Hawke, Viggo Mortensen,
Frances McDormand, and Owen Wilson.
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's black comedy Birdman will
kick off this year's fest.
Starring Michael Keaton as a washed-up actor who made his
name playing an iconic superhero but is currently struggling to
stage a Broadway play, Birdman premieres in competition on
August 27.
The star-studded cast also includes Edward Norton, Zach
Galifianakis, Stone and Naomi Watts.
Like last year's festival opener, Gravity, which was
directed by Inarritu's pal Alfonso Cuaron, Birdman is pegged as
an early Oscar contender.
In a sneak press preview Birdman was greeted with waves of
applause.
Napolitano, from his front-row perch, was already said to
be rubbing his hands at the prospect of a great festival
curtain-raiser.
Among the other highlights at the festival will be Abel
Ferrar's biopic on iconic Italian writer and filmmaker Pier
Paolo Pasolini starring brooding American actor Willem Dafoe;
and a celebration of Sophia Loren in her 80th year.
Hong Kong director Ann Hui's 'The Golden Era', a story of a
radical writer living in a period of Japanese imperialism in
China, will close the Lido-based festival on September 6.
French film composer Alexandre Desplat will head the main
jury panel that includes British actor Tim Roth, Palestinian
director Elia Suleiman, Italian actor-director Carlo Verdone,
and Chinese actress and director Joan Chen.
The international lineup also includes Swedish director Roy
Andersson's A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence
while David Oelhoffen's 'Loin des Hommes' stars Viggo Mortensen
as a teacher who becomes friendly with a dissident during
Frances war with Algeria.
Offerings from the United States include 'Good Kill' by
director Andrew Niccol and starring Ed Harris and Ethan Hawke as
a drone operator in Afghanistan; and David Gordon Green's
'Manglehorn', starring Al Pacino, Holly Hunter and Chris
Messina.
Several films will also be shown, apart from the
competitors, including 'The Sound and The Fury' by Hollywood
actor-director James Franco, an adaptation of the novel by
American writer William Faulkner; 'She's Funny That Way' from
Peter Bogdanovich; and The Humbling from Barry Levinson.
Danish director Lars Von Trier will present an extended
director's cut of his 'Nymphomaniac Volume II', which follows up
on the original presented last year at the Berlin Film Festival.
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