2023-08-29 15:12:13
The “Middle East” at the Venice Film Festival -1: Europe and America are facing each other, and the third world is… a third
Thick clouds loomed over an hour and a half before arriving at Marco Polo Airport in Venice yesterday. After another hour and a half, it started raining over the area, and meteorologists do not talk regarding a sunny day on the thirtieth of this month, the day the Venice Festival begins in its eightieth session.
Venice welcomed visitors to its film festival with rain (Archyde.com)
Strange choice
The opening film, as we mentioned here in one of the advance appearances, will be the Italian film “Comandente”, which succeeded the American film “Challengers”, as a result of the actors’ union strike, which prevents actors from promoting their films by conducting interviews or contributing to any media appearance related to the film. to which the representative belongs. The film stars Zendaya, who was not very grateful for this decision, but had to comply.
“Leader” is a film regarding real events related to a crisis involving a warplane. It is a strange opening in that its validity as a film ahead of the occasion depends on its technical proficiency and the search for the main element for which it can launch the new cycle. Virtually none of his representatives is known outside Italy. Even director Eduardo de Inglés has never garnered global attention before. The film may have a large production, which contributed to the decision of the festival’s president, Alberto Barbera, to choose it as an opening film, but it must be good to intercede for that or to proceed from here to other nominations, foremost among which, as has been the tradition for years, is the Oscar, which has become accessible through The Venice and Cannes Festivals.
Director Eduardo de Angelis directs a scene from “The Commander” (Indigo Film)
“Leader” revolves around the fate of a military aircraft that is undergoing a crisis that may lead to its death. The closing film, “The Snow Society”, is also regarding an aircraft that is subject to a similar crisis. The film is directed by J. a. Bayona is regarding a civilian plane that suffers a malfunction, as a result of which it is forced to land over the snows of the Andes, where the passengers will inevitably have to witness a dangerous situation entitled “The Struggle to Stay Alive”.
Between the two planes, the festival will display from this evening (August 30) to the tenth of next month 23 films in competition and 13 films out of competition. These films are fictional, as there are 6 non-fiction films that are also shown out of competition.
However, there is also an important and official competition, which is the “Horizons” competition, which includes 18 films, then 10 films outside of it, except for retrospectives, tributes, short films, and others recorded on the basis of support projects.
Director Damien Chazelle, who screened two previous films at this festival, “La La Land” and “First Man”, heads the official jury, which includes eight jurors, including Palestinian actor Saleh Bakri, Australian director Jane Campion and Irish director Martin McDonagh.
West first
Due to the absence of famous actors and actresses this year, it is expected that the number of journalists covering international festivals for the sake of interviews and the number of photojournalists will decrease as well. The matter will not be devoid of coverage by many websites and newspapers for this ceremony, but critical writing will likely be overwhelming in relation to the competing films and others, especially with the presence of many American films and a large number of new European films.
In all major European festivals that are not specialized in a specific type or direction of films, we find competition between Hollywood films and European films. This is due, of course, to the size of the film production on both continents and the size of the films shown within any European international festival.
It is a practice from the distant past that has become a traditional activation of what is presented and what wins. Latin countries and Asian countries usually have a measured presence, but they remain few.
From the closing film “Snow Society” (Apaches Entertainment)
In this year’s edition of the Venice Film Festival, for example, and within the framework of the official competition films, an embodiment of this unfair distribution of selected films.
6 American films, 6 Italian films, 3 French films, then one film each from: Britain, Germany, Holland, Poland, Czechia and Sweden. This makes the largest European percentage (15 films) and makes the number of associates from “Western” films (the United States and Europe) 21. This is what makes attendance from all over the world (except for the West) only two films, one from Chile and the other from Japan (Latin and Asian).
This game of nations affects the results, and here we suffice with the nine years between 2013 and 2022:
Number of American films winning the first prize (Golden Lion): 4.
Number of winning European films (with the same award) 4
Number of non-American and non-European films that won this first prize: 2 only. The Philippine film “The Woman Who Left” by Lav Diaz (2016) and the Mexican film “Roma” by Alfonso Cuaron (2018).
The matter is slightly different for the “Berlin” and “Cannes” festivals, and it is more different for the “San Sebastian” festival (which displays a large number of films from the Latin continent). As for the “London” and “Toronto” festivals, it is difficult to integrate their current situation into this situation, first because they are still a kind of festival that has shown a good number of films that previously participated in other festivals, and secondly because they do not formally distribute basic awards. .
If the reason is known…
This is what must be taken into account when asking questions to some directors from non-Arab countries regarding the reason for not selecting films (assuming that they are worthy of entering the international competition) for official competitions and transferring a large number of them to supporting competitions or showing them outside the competition, as access to them is limited to a number of filmmakers. He has the desire to see it in itself.
It is also no secret that there are many films now bearing the names of more than one country as producers.
This year, for example, we find the “Promised Land” of Nikolai Arsal carrying Swedish, Danish and German brigades. The film “The Captain” by Mattau Garoni is jointly represented by Italy – Belgium, and the film by Polish director Annieszka Holland carries the flags of Poland, the Czech Republic and Belgium. There are four countries that contributed to the financing of Bayan Torch’s movie Holly: Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and France.
All this makes it necessary to search for the first source of the film, or “The Production House,” to find out where the film really came from.
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