Which shows will be this that opens tomorrow, inauguration entrusted to Grace by Paolo Sorrentino? Before the films, many, a “bulimic” program of stressful interlocking, of the trends that will be discovered, many authors and authors and stars who will arrive at the Lido, there is our time, which is that of the genocide put in place by the Israeli government in Gaza in front of the eyes of the world, of an ethnic cleaning that has been going on for over two years with respect to which it cannot be silent. To the open letter of Venice4palestine, signed by over 1500 signatures of people of Italian cinema, art, culture, information in which the Biennale is asked for a position, the institution – unlike the days of the authors who expressed a position of net solidarity and of the critical week which, although with a more nuanced “line”, has joined the appeal – did not respond directly to the requests while defining “an open and sensitive place”. There has been a further response to this of Venice4palestine yesterday in which he asked, among other things, the presence of Palestinian artists at the opening ceremony, for now remained unanswered. Before this, an event had been announced for next Saturday at the Lido, and there will certainly be other initiatives. We will see what will happen tomorrow evening in the large room of the ceremony – with the thousands of people standing in Piazza Grande in Locarno in the eyes in the inaugural evening with the direction and board of the festival on stage – but certainly an institution of “open and sensitive” culture that mainly works on the imagination cannot, it could not at least, remain silent when citizens and citizens everywhere in the world now no longer tolerate this impunity of Netanyahu. choices of individual governments and mobilization is constant in every sector.
There are films, of course and there are the artists and artists, with the cinema that if it is alive it gives voice to what happens, to what is the time in which it is realized. Like precisely the Kaouther film Ben Hania The voice of Hind Rajabwe already know which entry the title, that of the girl, Hind Rajab killed “live” by the Israelis as he telephoned to call for help, the only surviving to the massacre of his family, refers. However, the military of the Idf still shot killing people on the ambulance that came to his aid. With her there are other “dissident” voices but perhaps it may not be enough again. Because the official word taking of the exhibition is necessary, important and without rhetoric but in fact, in being within one’s time, in a space that affirms a clear no to what happens in Gaza and Palestine, to the cancellation of a people, of its lives, of her memory.
In the next Days everything will be blended, of course, in the usual bubble. We will see Mega Budget and independent, very Italian cinema, five titles competing for five directors: Leonardo Di Costanzo (Elisa), Pietro Marcello (carried); Gianfranco Rosi (Under the clouds), Franco Maresco (A well made movie) in addition to the aforementioned Grace. There is out of competition, Luca Guadagnino (After the Hunt) and there are the series of Marco Bellocchio (Portobello) and Stefano Sollima (The monster), and then the discovery for a great Orpheus Festival by Virgilio Villoresi. They are just a few, precisely, because the Lido is still the privileged destination of national cinema. At the announcement of the titles at the press conference, the controversy over the lack of women’s directors had exploded. True, there are two in horizons, Laura Samani (A year of school) and Carolina horses (Arabella’s kidnapping). But the question is not the numbers – as from controversy – how interesting it would be to understand why there are so few directors in our cinema, that it is a structural, system problem – in fact there are not even the days or Sic. And that sometimes if you don’t take any less compact films, it is also to defend them, the audiences of Venetian species can be fierce.
But on why There are no directors, on the other hand, would be profitable to work and try to go on. These are some ideas, together with the one that returns cyclically of the next new direction, who will happen to Alberto Barbera. The exhibition is also this.
