VeniceFilmFestival Tagged Articles at Cinematical

It all started in Venice in 1932 – the world's first film festival. Then other festivals began popping up for a variety of reasons, some political, given the growingly fascist government in Italy: Cannes in 1946, Edinburgh in 1947, Berlin in 1951, and so on, until the present day, when a journalist can spend a decent portion of the year (and salary) covering Sundance, the Toronto Film Festival, Telluride, South by Southwest, Fantastic Fest, New York Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, CineVegas, and, more recently, San Diego Comic-Con, just to name as a few, as well as the aforementioned international festivals if they're really lucky.

As time has passed, the fests have become more than venues for movie buyers and sellers to haggle over movies or arbiters of taste in the finest of arthouse flicks. Along the way, critics and journalists have gotten into the festival circuit, which is a win-win for the movies and the writers; small films get the buzz that's sometimes a good push for them to get picked up by distributors, and the writers get access to films before they get hot, making them tastemakers and generally ahead of the curve when it comes to Oscar season, film trends, and insider-y scoops that can only occur when you find yourself sharing an elevator with a Weinstein. Festivals can be great litmus tests for movies that take forever to get picked up – you can pretty much guarantee they're gonna be a stinker by the time they arrive in theaters for a weekend and disappear after that.

It may not be the future of film as some herald it, but it doesn't take a psychic to realize that 3-D, gimmick it may still seem, is here to say. Two unrelated news items today coalesced together into a dawning realization, is an Academy Awards category for Best 3-D Film inevitable? But before the examination of such a hypothetical category, let's take a look at the news that inspired this post.

The Final Destination wins the international Hollywood box office.
According to Screen Daily, The Final Destination took in $17.3mil on its opening weekend run around the globe. Considering how poorly received the newest entry in the death-claims-all franchise was critically, that may seem like a surprise, but the mere presence of eye wear is the chief explanation for the successful haul. Russia alone accounted for roughly half of the weekend total, and according to the same report, half of Russia's contributions were driven by the extra premium charged for the third dimension.

What's that mean? Well for one, more crappy horror movies are going to go the 3-D route from now on. This trend was already on the rise, but studios will not ignore a win at the domestic and international box offices. And for two, more 3-D films of all genres will be on the rise. Clearly The Final Destination is not the sole catalyst for this gimmick renaissance, but it is the latest check box in a long column of studio wins.

The Hole wins the inaugural Persol 3-D Award for the Best 3-D Stereoscopic Film of the Year at the Venice International Film Festival.

Cannes has La Croisette and the world premieres and the yachts and the red carpet mishegoss, but Venice is no slouch when it comes to excellent directors and exciting premieres (and oh yeah, the parties). This year's line-up has plenty to offer cinephiles from around the world. And for you betting types, take note that Abel Ferrara and Werner Herzog will both be there; Herzog will be showing his "re-imagining" of Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant, which so incensed Ferrara that he wished dire bodily harm upon Herzog and star Nicolas Cage.

I'm also particularly excited about Alex Cox showing Repo Chick, a sequel to his fabulous 1984 film Repo Man. Other super-cool stuff includes Steven Soderbergh's The Informant! with Matt Damon and his creepy mustache, Grant Heslov's The Men Who Stare at Goats, starring George Clooney, and [REC 2], the sequel to the Spanish horror film from Jaume Balaguero. Michael Moore with also be there with his new film, Capitalism: A Love Story. And audiences will finally get a look at the long-awaited Cormac McCarthy adaptation, The Road, starring Viggo Mortensen.

Ang Lee, who himself has won two Golden Lions at prior Venice festivals, is heading up the jury.

The full list is after the jump. Let us know what you think about the line-up and what you're eager to see.

Jimmy Carter may not have gotten a lot of respect when he was president -- maybe the fact that he was called "Jimmy" had something to do with it -- but he's enjoyed a resurgence in recent years as his humanitarian efforts have reminded Americans what they liked about him in the first place. He's not a great politician, but he's an honest, good-hearted man with noble intentions.

And now filmmaker Jonathan Demme (Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense, Neil Young: Heart of Gold) has scored with a documentary about him, called Man from Plains. Now playing at the Toronto International Film Festival, it was at the Venice fest, too, where it picked up three prizes last weekend.

The international critics' jury give the film its top award, while the Human Rights Film Network gave it a prize for best feature film. It also received the Collateral Award for Best Biography, which is presented by the Bologna Film Festival in conjunction with the Venice fest.

Sony Pictures Classics is releasing the film theatrically in October. It follows Carter on his recent tour for his book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, which caused a stir with its controversial subject matter.

Demme is perhaps best known as a director of fictional films, including Philadelphia and The Silence of the Lambs (for which he won an Oscar). But his documentaries have been widely acclaimed, too. Many people consider his Talking Heads and Neil Young movies to be among the best concert films ever made. So his portrait of Jimmy Carter promises to be interesting -- and apparently the people in Venice think so, too.

There's more than just a tantalizing list of films brewing for this year's Venice Film Festival. They've finally succumbed to their inner pun and created a new award, which has been 4 years in the making. After a lot of negotiating, Venice 2007 will offer the first Queer Lion award. This will go to the best full-length film, selected by a small, international jury, that features either a gay character or theme. And just what will this gay lion look like? I'm sure you can imagine. The lucky winner will get a gold plaque with the Venice Lion's winged logo, with, of course, the rainbow coloring on the wings to symbolize gay pride. Lions AND pride, it goes so well together that I can't believe it has taken this long. Gotta love a good pun.

Competition director Daniel Casagrande says: "We aren't looking for the next Brokeback Mountain. We are just looking for films that accurately portray gay characters or themes." He expects that 10-12 films will be candidates for the award in this first year, a prize which is eligible to any main competition contender. This isn't the first film fest to create such an award. Berlin has had a Teddy Award for over two decades. Well, Germany was way ahead of the times, but Venice has trumped with a better name. Who wants a teddy? It just brings to mind fat presidents and women's lingerie -- not a pair I think any of us want to think of at the same time.

To be honest, the summer crop of movies hasn't had me lining up at the box office like I thought it would. Instead, my attention has been firmly fixed on fall and winter. So you can imagine my glee when a promotional clip from the Paul Thomas Anderson film There Will Be Blood, courtesy of Al Rose Promotions fell into my lap. The movie is Anderson's return to directing since Punch Drunk Love way back in 2002 -- that is if you don't count his presence on the set of Robert Altman's A Prairie Home Companion. Based on the Upton Sinclair book Oil!, Blood stars Daniel Day-Lewis as a misanthropic oil-man who makes his fortune alongside a charismatic preacher (Paul Dano) who's making a name for himself by winning over the townsfolk. The film has been described as "a story about family, greed, religion, and oil, centered around a turn-of-the-century Texas prospector in the early days of the business" and none of Anderson's usual suspects like Philip Baker Hall, Luis Guzmán, or Philip Seymour Hoffman are known to be making an appearance. Instead, it looks like the cast has been chosen for a very specific period look.

The film was shot in New Mexico and Marfa, Texas back in 2006, and it's expected to make its world debut at the Venice Film Festival this August. Until now, there have only been a couple of photos released, and some positive news on the script, but this teaser gives us the first real glimpse at what to expect. I'm a big fan of Anderson so I could be a little biased, but from what I just saw, I'll be marking November 21st on my calendar, when There Will Be Blood hits theaters.

I wouldn't be surprised if a Hollywood sign is spotted floating down one of Venice's many canals, as one third of the Italian fest's lineup "is probably going to be American," so says fest chief Marco Muller. What's being touted as one of the "strongest editions ever," this year's Venice Film Festival will most likely host the world premieres for films like Robert Zemeckis' 3-D Beowulf, Todd Haynes' Bob Dylan biopic I'm Not There (remember, that's the one that has six different actors and actresses playing the legendary performer), Ang Lee's Lust, Caution and one of my most anticipated flicks of 2007, Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood. The full 60-pic lineup will be announced on July 26, with the actual fest taking place from August 29 through September 8.

Essentially his most ambitious film to date, There Will Be Blood marks PTA's triumphant return to the big screen following his 2002 love-it-or-hate-it romantic dramedy Punch Drunk Love. Pic, which stars Daniel Day-Lewis, is a turn-of-the-century drama that revolves around a Texan family during the early days of the oil business. Not only is it Anderson's first film based on existing material (in this case it's an Upton Sinclair novel), but it's also the first that doesn't feature his usual cast of regulars (most notably Luis Guzmán and Philip Seymour Hoffman). As it stands right now, both There Will Be Blood and the Coen Bros.' No Country for Old Men are set to hit theaters on November 21, with the former arriving in limited release. Could they make it any more difficult for me to choose which one to see first? For more info on the Venice Film Festival, be sure to hit up their official website.

After it was introduced late into competition, leaving many critics unable to screen the film, Jia Zhang-Ke's Still Life was awarded Venice's top prize, the Golden Lion. The film, which tells the story of two people searching for loved ones during the controversial Three Gorges Dam project, took a lot of folks by surprise when it won, even after the pic was shown to a packed house following the awards ceremony. Thus, many began to question the jury's decisions, who were originally split four to three over the top prize and had to hold an extra meeting on Saturday in order to make a final decision.

Oh, but the surprises did not stop there: In the Best Actor category, Ben Affleck won for his portrayal of George Reeves in Hollywoodland. Yes, Ben Affleck. With very little buzz surrounding his performance, I think it's safe to say this one came from way out in left field. In fact, the only award folks seemed to be in agreement with was the prize for Best Actress, which went to Helen Mirren for The Queen.

Because both Italian film festivals apparently need all the glitz and glamor they can get, the Venice Fest this year will see the awarding of the first (annual?) Gucci Group Award, created to recognize "personalities outside the movie industry who have made a remarkable artistic contribution to film over the past 18 months." The most prominent among the nominees is Australian singer/songwriter Nick Cave who recently moved into screenwriting; The Proposition, which he scripted, has received world-wide acclaim. In addition to Cave and two others, Helena Christensen (!) is nominated for her acting work in Allegro, as are Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno for their direction of the innovative soccer doc Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait.

The winner will be announced on September 8 "during a gala ceremony held in the 14th century Palazzo Ducale on the Piazza San Marco." Ooh la la! Needless to say, all the attendees will be impeccably dressed.