On the road movies inspire the image of the official poster by Lorenzo Mattotti for the Biennale Cinema 2023

Italian illustrator and artist Lorenzo Mattotti is, for the sixth consecutive year, the author of the image for the official poster, and for the fifth year, of the opening sequence for the Venice International Film Festival of La Biennale di Venezia, this year in its 80^th edition (August 30 – 9 September 2023).

The image chosen for the poster this year “is inspired by the tradition of on the road movies, explains Lorenzo Mattotti, and in this way seeks to express feelings of freedom, adventure, the discovery of new territories. I played with the graphics – underscores the author – to represent new worlds that can be explored through Cinema. We are convinced that there is a great future for Cinema that looks forward and ventures down new paths. Furthermore, the Venice International Film Festival is celebrating its 80^th edition this year and we wanted to commemorate that in the number that appears on the license plate of an imagined car. Naturally, many are the films that can be evoked by this image, such as Il sorpasso, Easy Rider or Thelma and Louise. May each of us find our own on the road movie. This is our wish for Cinema, may it go far and sprint towards the future. A future of exploration, in search of new frontiers: a colourful luminous Cinema”.

Lorenzo Mattotti lives and works in Paris. He began his career in the late 1970s as a comic artist and in the early 1980s founded the Valvoline group with other illustrators. In 1984 he created Fuochi, which was greeted as an event in the world of comic art, and won important international awards. In cinema, he collaborated in 2004 on Eros by Wong Kar-Wai, Soderbergh and Antonioni, and was responsible for the presentation segments of each episode. He was a creative consultant for Pinocchio by Enzo D'Alò. In Incidenti, Signor Spartaco, Doctor Nefasto, L'uomo alla finestra and many more books, all the way to Stigmate published in Italy by Einaudi, Mattotti's work has evolved following an extremely consistent constant. Today his books have been translated around the world. He publishes in newspapers and magazines such as The New Yorker, Le Monde, Das Magazin, Suddeutsche Zeitung, Nouvel Observateur, Corriere della Sera and Repubblica. He has illustrated many books for children including Pinocchio and Eugenio, which won the Grand Prix in Bratislava in 1993. He has held many solo exhibitions including an anthological exhibition at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome, at the FransHals museum in Haarlem and at the Musei di Porta Romana. He creates posters, covers, advertising campaigns and is the author of the Cannes 2000 poster and the posters for the Estate Romana festival.
In May 2019, he presented to great acclaim in the Un certain regard section of the Cannes Film Festival, his first animated feature-length film as author and director, titled La famosa invasione degli orsi in Sicilia (The Bears' Famous Invasion of Sicily) inspired by the fable/apologue by Dino Buzzati.