Film festival will rock movie world
Embrace in Venice of controversial directors such as Polanski and Parker has drawn some vocal criticism
It may be the oldest film festival in the world but, at 76, the Venice International Film Festival is more relevant and divisive than ever. Kicking off in the normally sleepy beach town of Lido, this year’s festival has already become a hotbed for discussion about the Oscar hopefuls launching there, its embrace of controversial filmmakers like Roman Polanski and Nate Parker in the #MeToo era and its lack of female directors.
Among the highest-profile films debuting in competition for the prestigious Golden Lion Award, which last year went to Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma, are James Gray’s space epic Ad Astra starring Brad Pitt; Noah Baumbach’s divorce drama
Marriage Story starring Scarlett Johansson; Steven Soderbergh’s Panama Papers comedy The Laundromat, with Meryl Streep;
Waiting for the Barbarians, a J.M. Coetzee adaptation with Johnny Depp and Robert Pattinson; and Joker, an unconventional, Martin Scorseseinspired origin story about Batman’s foe starring Joaquin Phoenix.
For director and co-writer Todd Phillips, the festival debut will be helpful in “educating the audience” before it opens in theatres.
“We don’t want to mislead people,” Phillips said. “Comic book movies have been these giant, great spectacles and this is truly a character study.”
But only two of the 21 films in competition are from female directors: Shannon Murphy in her directing debut with Babyteeth, starring Ben Mendelsohn, and The Perfect Candidate from Saudi Arabian director Haifaa Al-Mansour about a young Saudi female doctor who decides to run for office. It’s an increase from last year, which only had Jennifer Kent’s The Nightingale, but still far from equal.
On top of that, one of the coveted competition slots went to Roman Polanski’s espionage thriller An Officer and a Spy. The director has been a fugitive for more than 40 years. He fled the US after pleading guilty to unlawful sex with a minor.
The festival is also hosting the premiere of American Skin, the first film from Nate Parker since a rape allegation from his past derailed the release of his Nat Turner biopic The Birth of a Nation in 2016.
Melissa Silverstein, the founder and publisher of the website Women and Hollywood and co-founder of the Athena Film Festival, has been one of the most vocal critics of the programming, which festival director Alberto Barbera has defended as worthy choices.
“There are festivals that are committed to making systemic change and those that felt forced to be a part of an agenda they had no interest in. The Venice Film Festival is clearly in latter camp,” Silverstein said.
“The only way a festival can change is if the leadership wants it to change. Nobody is expecting the change to be easy, but the message this festival is sending is that abusers are more welcome than women directors.”
A spot at Venice has helped launch careers like Al-Mansour, Saudi Arabia’s first female director, whose first feature Wadjda played at Venice in 2012.
“Venice has been really an important launch for my career. This time I’m in the competition so hopefully this marks a new stage in my life as I grow as a director,” AlMansour said. “I’m very grateful for the opportunity to bring my voice to the world with such an amazing platform for filmmakers. But [it’s] still very nerve-racking. It’s a big screen and it’s a big festival.”
She would like to see more women in competition, as would Olivier Assayas, who also debuted his first feature there over 30 years ago and credits the festival for putting him “on the map”.
Known for writing and directing films with complex female leads, Assayas is coming this year with Wasp Network, based on the stories of a spy ring in the 1990s that was controversially arrested and imprisoned by the United States. It stars Edgar Ramirez, Penelope Cruz and Ana de Armas and was partially filmed in Cuba.
Venice is the unofficial start of the autumn film festival season, with the Toronto International Film Festival and Telluride and New York festivals following shortly after. It helps define the films in awards discussion until the Oscars in February.
Julie Andrews is being honoured with the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement.The festival runs until September 7.