2023-08-28 09:44:47
With a selection of controversial filmmakers, such as Roman Polanski and Woody Allen, the 80th edition of the Italian festival is likely to open on Wednesday in a disturbed atmosphere.
Deprived of Hollywood stars due to the actors’ strike, the 80th Venice Film Festival, which opens on Wednesday August 30, risks being exposed to criticism following selecting controversial filmmakers, targeted by accusations of sexual assault, such as Roman Polanski and Woody Allen.
The dean of film festivals, which serves as a launching pad for Hollywood before the awards season, will be the first major event in the 7th art to bear the brunt of the historic strike that is paralyzing American cinema.
A festival disrupted by the strike
For two months, the actors have joined the screenwriters in their social movement, asking for better remuneration and supervision of the use of artificial intelligence. Their powerful union, the SAG-AFTRA, prohibits all its members, even the most illustrious, from filming during the strike but also from participating in the promotion of films. Except surprise, farewell to the red carpet for the stars of selected American productions, such as Jessica Chastain, Bradley Cooper or Michael Fassbender.
Read alsoOn the 100th day of their strike, Hollywood screenwriters denounce a “shameful threshold” crossed by the studios
The Mostra also had to give up on its opening film, Challengers by Luca Guadagnino, with Zendaya, Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist, replaced by a much less glamorous Italian production. Ferrari, by Michael Mann, 80, will be one of the events of the competition. This biopic of the car brand’s founder, Enzo Ferrari, by the author of Heat or Collateralbenefits from a derogation granted by the union, which might allow its actors, Adam Driver and Penelope Cruz, to participate in the Italian demonstration.
Polanski will not come
Also in the running for the Lion d’Or, won last year by documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras (All the beauty and the bloodshed), filmmakers David Fincher (Seven, Fight Club) or Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation, Virgin suicides). The out-of-competition screening of William Friedkin’s latest film will inevitably be an emotional moment, a month following the death of the cult director of The Exorcist. However, this selection is distinguished above all by the return to the screen of filmmakers implicated in cases of sexual assault, which they contest.
Read alsoWilliam Friedkin, the man who exorcised Hollywood
Among them, Roman Polanski, 90, lives in Europe safe from American justice, which he has been fleeing for more than 40 years following a conviction for rape. Persona non grata in Hollywood, this big name in the 7th art (The pianist, Rosemary’s Baby) has seen his situation change in France since the controversy around the César he obtained for the realization of I accuse.
Read alsoPolanski, the Caesars and the patriarchy: in the procession of demonstrators for another cinema
A large part of the profession considers him a symbol of a certain impunity with regard to sexual violence. Today, he is very discreet. The Mostra brings it back to light, thanks to the out-of-competition selection of The Palace , with notably Fanny Ardant and Mickey Rourke, filmed in Gstaad (Switzerland). Polanski, however, has no plans to come to Venice, said his press officer and the festival.
Far from parity
Woody Allen, 87, has seen almost the entire industry turn its back on him following allegations of sexual assault of his adopted daughter, which he denies and for which no investigation has been successful. He will present his 50th film, Stroke of luckshot in Paris in French and featuring Lou de Laâge, Valérie Lemercier, Melvil Poupaud and Niels Schneider.
La Mostra, whose jury is chaired by director Damien Chazelle (La La Land), will also see the return to competition of Luc Besson, with Dogman . The director of Léon a you Fifth elementwith a roller coaster career, saw her legal horizon emerge at the end of June, the Court of Cassation definitively dismissing the rape charges brought once morest her by actress Sand Van Roy.
While the issues of the fight once morest discrimination and sexual violence seemed to be progressing in recent years in the world of cinema, in the wake of the #MeToo movement, these symbolic choices of the festival have aroused the anger of feminist activists. The 50/50 collective denounces the “considerable visibilityoffered to these men. On the parity side, the selection has five women filmmakers for 19 men in the running for the Golden Lion awarded on September 9, a trophy which has been won over the past three years by female directors.
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