COPY LINK

CULTURE

Italy’s Venice film festival a ‘sign of hope’ for world cinema

The decision to hold the Venice Film Festival despite the coronavirus pandemic is being hailed as a "sign of hope" for the movie world after months of closed cinemas, shuttered film sets and cancelled galas.

Published: 30 May 2020 13:56 CEST

Italy's Venice film festival a 'sign of hope' for world cinema

The Palazzo del Cinema is pictured on the eve of the opening of the 76th Venice Film Festival at Venice Lido, August 2019. Alberto PIZZOLI / AFP

The rapid global spread of the coronavirus forced major production companies to halt filming, and top silver-screen festivals to postpone or cancel their 2020 editions — including Venice's historic rival Cannes, usually held in May.

Despite Italy being among the worst-hit countries, with over 33,000 deaths, the director of the Venice Film Festival, Alberto Barbera, is defiant in the face of the disease, insisting the 77th edition of the “Mostra” will go ahead from September 2 to 12.

Italy has been slowly exiting its lockdown and organisers in the canal city are betting on a return to normality in the hard-hit north of the country by the end of the summer.

The first post-coronavirus festival will nonetheless have to adopt new sanitary and social distancing rules.

“It will be a unique edition. We still don't know exactly what we'll be able to do, but in the meantime are selecting the films and drawing up a plan to allow everyone to participate safely,” Barbera said on Instagram this week.

Giorgio Gosetti, head of the renowned parallel Venice Days competition for innovative or original filmmaking, told AFP it was “as if we were starting over again from 1932, when the festival was founded”.

“Everyone in the world of cinema… feels that right now the best place to celebrate, to show vitality, is the oldest festival in the world,” he said.

Barbera has repeatedly ruled out the suggestion the prestigious event could be held online, leaving film experts to suggest the number of films shown — generally over 200 — will be noticeably reduced.

Familiar scenes of throngs of paparazzi snapping photographs of A-listers on the red carpet and signing autographs for screaming crowds of fans are also unlikely.

Festival expert Angela Prudenzi told AFP that this year, “all eyes will be on the films, which is a very good thing”.

Rivalry with Cannes

What remains unclear is how the cancelled Cannes festival could work with Venice's festival — or step on its toes.

Guests arriving at the Festival Palace for the '70th Anniversary' ceremony of the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, southern France on May 23, 2017. The decision to hold the 2020 Venice Film Festival despite the coronavirus pandemic is being hailed a “sign of hope” for the movie world after months of closed cinemas, shuttered film sets and cancelled galas. LOIC VENANCE / AFP

Thierry Fremaux, the Cannes festival's director, has said he and Barbera have discussed the possibility of some type of collaboration, without providing details.

One complication for Venice, which has not yet released its roster of films, is that Cannes is set to unveil its own selection on Wednesday. The 50 to 60 films on the list will not be shown on the Croisette, but will benefit from the “Cannes 2020” label created after the cancellation of the 73rd edition.

Whether some of those films show at Venice instead, or bypass the Mostra entirely to premiere at other festivals such as Toronto or San Sebastian, remains unclear.

The Hollywood Reporter reported that Italian director Nanni Moretti's latest film, “Tre piani,” based on Israeli Eshkol Nevo's novel Three Floors Up, was set for Cannes, but will go to Venice instead.

Big US films that had been expected to premiere at Cannes — including Wes Anderson's “The French Dispatch” and Pixar's animated feature “Soul” — have pushed back their releases to later this year.

Where to watch

Traditionally held on the Lido, Venice's festival could include new spaces for film viewing this year.

Some have suggested that the Arsenal shipyards, where the city's famed art and architecture biennials are held, could be turned into cinemas, with only a limited, pre-booked number of viewers allowed inside.

Whether the film world's great and good will be seen this year nipping across the lagoon in speedboats or sipping prosecco at the festival's parties remains to be seen.

But Giona Nazzaro, a programmer who has helped revitalise Film Critics' Week, a Venice sidebar show, told the Manifesto newspaper that the festival going ahead provided a much-needed glimmer of light in dark times.

“That an industry suffering like the film industry is starting up again is a sign of hope,” he said.

Member comments

Become a Member to leave a comment.

Ice to AC: Nine of the most common American misconceptions about Italy

It’s no secret that Americans love to visit Italy; the Washington Post predicted in December that the country would be Americans’ top foreign tourist destination for 2023, and the volume of US visitors who’ve arrived in Italy since then appears to have borne this out.

But while many Americans have a deep knowledge of – and love for – Italian culture, there are some surprisingly enduring myths about Italy that can be found in the USA specifically.

Some come close to the truth, while others fall wide of the mark.

There is no ice in Europe/Italian restaurants charge for ice

Fiction – Americans love ice, beverages are routinely served with it and refrigerators in the US often have some type of ice dispenser attached to the door.

But in Italy, ice is simply less prioritised. While ice in your drink will usually not cost you extra, you might need to specifically request it. Soft drinks in Italy are usually served without ice, so if you want your beverage iced, you need to request the drink con ghiaccio – with ice.

A classic Italian spritz should always come with ice. Photo by Tomasz Rynkiewicz on Unsplash

Italian homes don’t have dryers

Fact (mostly) – Tumble dryers do exist in Italy, but they’re rare. A survey published by Italy’s national statistics office (Istat) in 2014 found that just 3.3 percent of Italian households had one, whereas 96.2 percent had a washing machine and 39.3 percent a dishwasher.

Those washing lines strung with laundry hanging above the heads of passers by aren’t there just to create a quaint backdrop for photos – people make wide use of the abundant sun to air dry their clothes and sheets.

That does not mean that Italians in cities don’t occasionally use clothes dryers though if they’re in a rush; some might take items to a nearby laundromat.

McDonald’s is healthier in Italy

Fact (sort of) – McDonald’s uses different ingredients based on the country, and the Big Mac in Italy is (slightly) healthier than the one sold in the United States. It is slightly less calorific, with 509 kCal in contrast to the American Big Mac’s 540 kCal per 100g.

The Italian Big Mac also has less salt and fat, but it does not compare to the world’s healthiest Big Mac (found in Israel).

McDonald’s in Italy also uses EU-sourced ingredients, and the EU restricts the usage of additives and growth hormones. For example Azodicarbonamide which is used to bleach flour, is banned in the EU, but not in the United States, where McDonald’s was still using it as of 2016.

It is true, however, that you can buy beer in McDonald’s in Italy.

McDonald’s burgers are marginally healthy in Italy compared to the US. Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

Italians drive small cars

Fiction (increasingly) – Think of Italian cars, and you might picture a classic Fiat 500 puttering around picturesque cobbled streets – but that’s all changing.

2021 was a historic year for the Italian automotive industry: the sale of SUVs surpassed those of medium-sized sedans for the first time, claiming 48 percent of the market share compared to the sedan’s 45 percent.

That may not match the US, where SUVs and pick-up trucks currently account for around 73 percent of vehicles sold, but it’s a huge increase from 2012, when SUVs made up just 17 percent of vehicle sales in Italy.

There are no free public toilets

Fact (mostly) – You will occasionally find an Italian town or city that offers some free public toilets. For the most part though, you’ll have to pay, including in train stations – and even paid public toilets are few and fair between.

Instead, you’re better off heading to one of the many caffe-bars found all over the country and paying for a euro for a bottle of water or a coffee so you can use their facilities – if you ask nicely, you might even be allowed to go for free.

Metro stations, supermarkets and grocery stores tend to not have any toilets at all, and neither will most clothing stores. One place you will find plenty of free public bathrooms, though, is a motorway service station.

Something that strikes many visitors to Italy as odd is the lack of seats on public toilets. Exactly why this is the case is debated, but there’s a general consensus that the phenomenon has rapidly accelerated in the past couple of decades.

A street sign at an antiques fair in Turin. Free toilets in Italy are few and far between. Photo by rashid khreiss on Unsplash

Italy doesn’t have air conditioning

Fact (sort of) – There’s not no air conditioning in Italy – in fact data from Italy’s national statistics office showed that one in two Italian households had AC in 2021.

It’s far less popular than in the US, though, where 90 percent of households have air conditioning. There’s still not much of a culture of AC in Italy, where many believe it will give you a colpo d’aria leading to at best a sore neck and at worst pneumonia – so even households that have a unit tend to use it sparingly.

If your hotel or Airbnb doesn’t specifically mention AC, you can assume it doesn’t have it.

Coca-Cola tastes different in Italy

Fact – While Coke is available almost everywhere in the world, the actual ingredients in Coca-Cola are different in some countries, which could lead some Coke connoisseurs to notice a difference in taste between the products in the US and those in the EU.

The biggest difference is the regular Coke – in the US this uses high fructose corn syrup while in Europe cane sugar is used to sweeten the product, resulting in a significant difference in taste.

You’re much more likely in Italy to come across Coca Zero, the zero-sugar version of Coca-Cola, than Coca-Coca Light, the European version of Diet Coke, which has always been hard to find and which some online sources say Italy stopped distributing altogether in 2022.

Coke in the US: different to its European counterparts. Photo by Cody Engel on Unsplash

You don’t need to tip

Fact – It’s not necessary to tip after a restaurant meal in Italy. However, this is a matter of personal choice and you are free to do so (tipping certainly won’t cause upset).

Diners do often leave some change after a particularly enjoyable meal. In terms of how much to give, some people round up a bill to include a tip, while others give what spare change they have.

Some people may also opt to tip other professionals as well, such as taxi drivers and cleaners, but again – this is optional and typically not a large quantity. In some apartment buildings, residents may give a Christmas card with money inside to the portiere (doorman) as a kind of annual tip.

All cars are stick shift

Mostly fact – In the United States, stick shift vehicles are becoming a thing of the past, but in Italy they are still very much being bought and driven.

As of 2018, around 20 percent of new cars sold in Italy were automatic – which is much higher than the less-than-one percent sold in the 1980s, but still a lot less than the US’s figure of 96 percent.

That said, around 70 percent of SUVs sold in Italy use automatic transition, so with the popularity of these larger vehicles on the rise, you can expect to see more automatics on Italian roads in the future.

What do you think? Have you noticed any other common beliefs or misconceptions about Italy in the US, or elsewhere? We’d love to hear from you in the comments section below.

SHOW COMMENTS

Url copied to clipboard!