Venice Film Festival: it’s a dirty job but someone has to do it.

Last year I used to sleep four hours per night. I finished writing my reviews at 3am, slept like a baby until 7am when the sun hit my sofa bed and I had no choice but to wake up and get ready for another day of hard work. This time around I don’t even have a sofa bed. But I don’t care, because going to the Venice Film Festival is always great fun and the average quality of the film is always damn good.

This is largely thanks to Marco Muller, director of the festival, who brought the cream of far Eastern directors to the light. Although his attention has always focused on China, leaving other parts of Asia under-represented, his work has been absolutely indispensable, precious and enriching. Muller’s East-mania has caused controversies and arguments among the Italian press and audience: they spend the year being selfish and having no sense of state whatsoever, but when Venice is on, Italians suddenly turn more nationalist than the French. And every time an Italian director does not win the Golden Lion (which is nearly always) newspapers and magazine are showered with conspiracy theories: “Muller is an enemy of Italy because he wanted to give the Lion to the Pakistanis”, “Muller is friends with the Yellows and has an unexplainable hate towards Italian directors”. No one seems to acknowledge that in the last ten years Italian cinema has been for the most part appalling!

This year is just going to be the same: Muller has appointed celebrated Chinese director Zhang Yimou as director of the Jury. And then, this years festival boasts three Italian films in the competition: Il Dolce E l’Amaro by Andrea Porporati, Nessuna Qualità Agli Eroi by Paolo Franchi and last but not least L’Ora Di Punta by talented Vincenzo Marra. I strongly hope that these works recieve praise, but they will have to face contestants like crazy genius Takashi Miike (Suriyaki Western Django, what a title!), Eric Rohmer (Les Amours D’Astrée Et Céladon), Brian De Palma (Redacted) plus Peter Greenaway’s comeback (Nightwatching) plus many others.

Out of the competition are a selection of films by Bernardo Bertolucci, who will be awarded a special Golden Lion for the Festival’s first 75 years, a program of cartoons by illustrator and set designer Emanuele Luzzatti and a program no John Ford. Plus the new works by Woody Allen, Im Kwon-taek, Claude Chabrol, Manoel de Oliveira: this year this section is crammed with masters of cinema as ever.

By the way, Ingmar Bergman’s sudden death has prompted the Festival to dedicate him an “homage”; Michelangelo Antonioni, who died only a few hours later, is going to be remembered too. Tim Burton, whose weight in the history of cinema is not comparable to that of the other two, will be awarded a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement. Bizarre, ain’t it? Ok, time to do my suitcase, the Lido awaits me!