Winter 1999: FESTIVAL ROUNDUP
Venice Film Festival

This year, Venice got a jump on the magic number that will announce the next millenium. The 1998 film festival, Venices 55th, claimed the attendance of 2,000 journalists and critics, a round but ridiculous number, even allowing for the various press, cultural, and professional accreditations issued to friends, political figures, and anyone who knew someone connected to the festival.

What were they all doing here? The paparazzi, public, and celebrity-chasing press had enough megawatt star power to keep them entranced  Spielberg and his gang of 80, Jim Carrey, DiCaprio, Warren Beatty, Tom Hanks, Melanie Griffith, De Niro, George Clooney (adored here for "E.R.," apparently must-see TV for the entire world)  while the working press tried to figure out which, and how many of the 120 scheduled films (little more than half of last years offerings) to see. That list included 57 world premieres, but the largest press crowd of any screening I attended was the one fighting to get into Woody Allens out-of-competition Celebrity.

This years premieres included the Taviani brothers Tu Ridi, Claude Lelouchs Hasards out Coincidences, and Shekhar Kapurs Elizabeth. The U.S. films playing here out of competition were Saving Private Ryan, which swept into Venice on a tide of advance publicity for its first showing in Europe, and James Ivorys A Soldiers Daughter Never Cries. Of the U.S. films in competition, Bulworth, Dancing at Lughnasa, Rounders, and A Perfect Murder received reasonably good reviews, especially the first two, but the only American to receive a major prize was Sean Penn for Anthony Drazans Hurlyburly. Abel Ferrara, who previously attended Venice with The Funeral, brought New Rose Hotel, based on a short story by science-fiction writer William Gibson (known in Italy as "the great guru of cyberpunk"). The film means to be terrifying but seems mechanical and self-conscious rather than apocalyptic.

Other U.S. films showcased in various non-competitive sections included The Truman Show, Bob Rafelsons Poodle Springs, Spike Lees He Got Game, John Frankenheimers Ronin, Larry Clarks Another Day in Paradise, and Steven Soderberghs Out of Sight in the fests Nights and Stars section, in which three-quarters of the films were American. Side Streets by Tony Gerber was shown in the Perspectives section and The Opposite of Sex, directed by Don Roos, in the International Critics Week.

While the stars and their entourages flew in from the West, the most vital, sit-up-and-take-notice films arrived from Eastern Europe like a fresh breeze stirring up the desiccated, ultra-sophisticated air of some western European cinema. And even though filmmakers like Emir Kusturica, who won Best Director for Black Cat, White Cat, and Goran Paskaljevic (The Powder Keg), both from Yugoslavia though worlds apart in their vision, have become familiar figures in Paris or New York, they have not lost the vitality of their homelands.

As he did in Underground, Kusturica again fills the screen with a life-affirming group  "professional gypsies," 20 of whom reportedly accompanied him to Venice  whose eccentricities border on madness and for whom sanity and normalcy are never an option. During the festival the buzz built slowly about The Powder Keg (shot in an almost surreal Belgrade, where violence and corruption have replaced hope and humanity after the wars unbelievable brutality) and about Train de Vie, a tragicomedy about World War II from Paris-based Romanian director Radu Mihaileanu. Ovations, petitions for a second screening, and an informal assessment as the best picture of the festival were accorded Train de Vie, yet it is difficult to imagine it having any serious commercial success.

It is worth noting that Mihaileanu, who needed four years to finance his film, offered the major role of the madman to Roberto Benigni, who turned it down and then, within a year, began to shoot his own very successful Life is Beautiful, which also finds bittersweet humor in the horror of the Holocaust. Mihaileanu turns aside allegations of plagiarism while admitting that he would have liked his film to have been released first.

Paskaljevic, who is of Serbian descent, says his characters "are in fact all caught up in a spiral of Balkan madness"; shot in nine weeks of nights, in sequence, the film effectively and economically communicates this madness. He and Bosnian-born Kusturica have no love for each other, but Paskaljevic says his problems come not from any professional rivalry but from the disapproval of Milosevics government. He ascribes to the government his failure to receive an obligatory financial contribution from RTS (Serbian public television) and the fact that few theaters in Belgrade will show his film. It is scheduled to be released in Sarajevo, however, a first for a Serbian film, and then in Macedonia and Slovenia, perhaps because it is an unusual French-Greek-Turkish-Macedonian coproduction with additional support from Eurimages. And the International Critics Prize cant hurt.

There was also praise for Peter Mullans Orphans, a bleak but moving feature-length directorial debut for the acclaimed young Scottish actor. Also shown in the Perspectives section was Yom Yom by Amos Gitai, an Israeli filmmaker often censored at home for being too critical of his government.

Where did this leave the "big pictures" with the big stars? Some were sleekly (and slickly) professional: Nicole Garcias Place Vendome, for which Catherine Deneuve, looking and acting like Catherine Deneuve, won an undeserved Best Actress; the somewhat dull Voleur de Vie from director Yves Angelo; and, of course, Eric Rohmers Conte DAutomne, the third in his seasonal series. Some were impressive for a new take on old themes: Francesca Archibugis LAlbero Delle Pere about a touchingly dysfunctional family  Niccolo Senni won an award for best new young actor and Luca Bigazzi for best cinematography (he won also for Cosi Ridevano). Some had an element of originality: Tom Tykwers Run Lola Run, starring the hot young actress Franke Potente, and La Nube, directed by the Argentinian Fernando Solanas and scored by Gerardo Gandini, recipient of an award for best original film score. But too often they were overblown and underdone: too much special effect, too little affect. A comment overheard coming out of La Nube  "melodramatic redundancies"  sums it up.

Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbafs The Silence, (a Tadjikistan-Iran-France coproduction), only 76 minutes long with minimal dialogue, is a small gem about a blind boy. It received a gold medal from the Italian Senate for the film that expresses civil progress and human solidarity. A special jury prize went to Romanian director Lucian Pintilie for Terminus Paradis, set in modern-day Bucharest.

The winner of the Golden Lion was Gianni Amelios long The Way We Laughed about two Sicilian brothers in Turin in the late 50s and early 60s and, by extension, the plight of others like them who came north looking for work. The press reacted with accusations of dark deeds: "The fix was in." "An Italian picture hadnt carried off the top prize since 1988 so it was their turn to win." "The jury was pressured." "It was rigged." The award was followed immediately by the unexpected resignation of the Festivals artistic director, Felice Laudadio, who was obviously offended, especially after being mocked for this years stated "return to elegance," which consisted of special lighting by Vittorio Storaro at the entrance to the Palazzo del Cinema for the nightly "star walk" and a formal dress requirement for the evening events. "The media are unjust"; he will absolutely not direct next years festival; and "The entire system of prizes should be done away with!" No one takes any of this very seriously, and no one is surprised by the accusations and counter-accusations: this is Venice, this is Italy, and why should this year be any different?

What was different this year was the inauguration of a long planned Script and Film Market to further the development of Italian cinema. While it didnt attempt to compete with MIFED in Milan, the Market attracted television and art-film buyers and sellers from 30 countries. The investment money came from a private company, Veneziafiere, and is supported by the Venice Film Festival, which hopes to see it grow. Marlene Sternbaum, the Market director, believes it can become an interesting market for indies from the U.S. and would welcome and facilitate their attendance.

Venice International Film Festival by Belle Burke

Toronto International Film Festival by Ray Pride

Marco Island Film Festival by Brandon Judell

Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival by Stephen Gallagher

Tacoma Film Festival by Liane Bonin

International Film Festival, Mannheim-Heidelberg by Diane Sippl

Hawaii International Film Festival by Mike Jones

London Film Festival by Laura Macdonald

Shorts International Film Festival by Amy Veltman

CinemaTexas by Holly Willis