Venice Film Festival Artistic Director Alberto Barbera says he has been “toiling at a chaotic pace like a factory worker on an assembly line for the past nine months” to put together the star-studded line-up he has just unveiled and which will be on paper also seems to be one of his best. .
The upcoming 81st edition of the Lido offers a geographically balanced mix of well-known names and potential discoveries in a wide range of genres, ranging from pure entertainment to highly political works, and marks the return of erotically charged cinema, as Barbera tells it. Variety.
It seems like a great line-up. Are you happy?
Yes, of course I’m happy. I’m very happy because, as you say, the line-up is rich and varied. Let’s say I’m 95%-98% satisfied, because there is always room for improvement. But having said that, I have to say that this year’s selection reflects the ambitions and guidelines of the type of festival I have been working on for years. It brings together great auteur cinema; great spectacular cinema for the public; discoveries; debut filmmakers; and unexpected things. There is a real attempt to paint a general picture of the state of contemporary cinema in all its very different components.
Let’s talk about American films. Was it difficult to get them? Was there less stuff?
It wasn’t that hard. The films we got are actually mainly the films we started talking about when I did my usual tour in New York and Los Angeles at the beginning of this year, between late January and early February. But it’s true: there is a slowdown in production. In February, the effects of the pandemic and the post-pandemic period were still felt and negatively impacted production figures. In reality, many of the American films showing in Venice this year, apart from the Warner Bros. films (including “Joker 2”), are largely independent productions, even if their distribution is entrusted to the major studios.
This year there are no films from Netflix, which used to be a mainstay in Venice. Why?
Netflix is absent because they didn’t have a festival product. They are going through a transition phase after Scott Stuber (former head of Netflix Films) left in the fall. He was replaced at the beginning of this year by Dan Lin, who clearly needed some time. But they will probably be back next year. I am in constant contact with Netflix, I already know which films they have in the pipeline and which will be ready for the next edition of the festival. They are great titles, from great authors.
A24, which was in Venice for the first time last year with ‘Priscilla’, is back with the erotic thriller ‘Babygirl’ starring Nicole Kidman.
Yes, I think they hesitated before because they didn’t know Venice. But they were happy with last year’s experience.
You said earlier today that sexuality is back in Venice “in all its forms, heterosexual, homosexual, fluid, sadomasochistic and adolescent,” marking “a real return to eroticism after years of respectability and self-censorship.” Can you explain that?
Well, “Baby Girl” speaks for itself, right? It is about a sadomasochistic relationship within an American company with the novelty that, compared to other similar films, the ending actually testifies to the differences between now and the past. A film on this same theme would have ended very differently twenty or thirty years ago. Without spoilers, I will say that the female lead who was guilty of illegal behavior in the past, so to speak, would have been punished.
But the most erotic work in Venice – again, I don’t want to give too much away – is the Alfonso Cuaron-directed TV series ‘Disclaimer’. [starring Cate Blanchett]. The fourth episode of the series is really very extreme. Obviously I can’t say more. Then there is another film that deals with the theme of sexuality and promiscuous sexual behavior in a very free, frank and direct way, and that is the film ‘Love’ by the Norwegian filmmaker Dag Johan Haugerud, his sequel to ‘Sex’, which was released in premiered in Berlin earlier this year and completes a trilogy about very modern sexual behavior.
And then of course there is “Queer” – is it true that there is a lot of sex on screen?
Yes, of course there is ‘Queer’, in which the two major themes are drug addiction and then the addiction to physical and sexual attraction to men of the same sex. In this film too, we are in the realm of great, absolute candor, of the absence of prejudice, of the ability to address these issues in a direct, explicit way. And the fact that Daniel Craig lent himself to some very explicit erotic sequences is a sign of great courage in an era where this behavior is still rejected by a significant portion of the public.
During the press conference you called it the biggest role of Craig’s career.
Look, normally I don’t do this, because it’s not right for a festival director to make such a fuss. But there are two memorable performances this year, so to speak [at Venice] those are the performances of a lifetime and they are Daniel Craig in “Queer” and Joaquin Phoenix in “Joker 2.” They are absolutely memorable performances and I would be surprised if they weren’t competing for top recognition, both in Venice and at the Oscars.
