Towards the 90th anniversary of the Venice International Film Festival

The programme has been finalised for the celebration of the 90^th anniversary of the Venice International Film Festival – the first edition of which was held from August 6^th through 21^st 1932 on the terrace of the Hotel Excelsior on the Lido – which La Biennale di Venezia is organizing on Saturday July 9^th 2022.

The celebrations will open in the morning (10:30 am) with an international conference in the Library of the Historical Archive of La Biennale (ASAC) at the Giardini. The greetings by the President of La Biennale, Roberto Cicutto, will be followed by the presentation – with a conversation between the Director of the Venice International Film Festival Alberto Barbera and the author – of the Italian edition of the new La Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica di Venezia 1932 - 2022 written by Professor Gian Piero Brunetta, the product of the collaboration between La Biennale and the Marsilio Editori publishing company.

The conference, divided into two sessions, one in the morning (through 1:30 pm) and one in the afternoon (3 pm to 6 pm), will feature the participation of historians, critics and teachers to reflect on the value of the historical and cultural experience of the Venice International Film Festival, and will gather – from the voices of authoritative protagonists – personal accounts, memories and emotions from the glorious adventure of the oldest film festival in the world.

The participants will include (in person or connected by video):

• Natalia Aspesi (Italy, journalist)
• Paolo Baratta (Italy, former President of La Biennale)
• Marco Bellocchio (Italy, director)
• Gian Piero Brunetta (Italy, film historian)
• Gianni Canova (Italy, critic and professor)
• Marina Cicogna (Italy, producer)
• Michel Ciment (France, critic)
• Giovanni De Luna (Italy, historian)
• Isabella Ferrari (Italy, actress)
• Valeria Golino (Italy, actress)
• Isabelle Huppert (France, actress)
• Gilles Jacob
• Alessandra Levantesi Kezich (Italy, critic)
• Paolo Mereghetti (Italy, critic)
• Vincenzo Mollica
• Carlo Montanaro (Italy, film historian)
• Maria Francesca Piredda (Italy, researcher Università  Cattolica di Milano)
• Jeff Sharp (USA, producer and Executive Director of the Gotham Film & Media Institute)
• Tilda Swinton (Great Britain, actress)

Also attending in person:

• Manitta Camerini, daughter of the director Mario Camerini
• Peter Cowie, film historian
• Luca De Michelis, CEO of Marsilio Editori
• Felice Laudadio, former Artistic Director of the Cinema Department of La Biennale di Venezia, film critic

The celebrations will continue with the screening in the evening (9 pm) in the historical Sala Grande of the Palazzo del Cinema on the Lido, of two masterpieces in the line-up of the first edition of the Venice International Film Festival in 1932:

• Regen (Rain) by Mannus Franken and Joris Ivens (The Netherlands, 1929, 12’, copy from the EYE Filmmuseum, Amsterdam)
• Gli uomini, che mascalzoni... (What Scoundrels Men Are!) by Mario Camerini (Italy, 1932, 66’, copy from the Cineteca Nazionale, Roma)

At Ca’ Giustinian (La Biennale headquarters) in Venice, an exhibition dedicated to the first edition of the Venice International Film Festival in 1932 will open to the public (inauguration date Friday 8 July). Based on materials from the Historical Archives of Contemporary Arts (ASAC) of La Biennale, it will feature previously unreleased documents, photographs, posters, articles from the past, playbills, film clips.