Venice Film Festival

Venice Film Festival

The history of the Venice Film Festival

Venice Film Festival is the oldest film festival in the world. The first festival was held at the times when fascists were ruling Italy. It took place in 1932, and lasted 2 weeks, on August 6-21. It’s remarkable that the festival became a large-scale event due to the support of the official government, and one of the top awards was called the Mussolini Cup. It was renamed after war and got its present name the Golden Lion, the award for the best film. Another interesting fact, that the Venice Film Festival contributed to the appearance of the Cannes Festival, which was organized as an alternative in the light of political disputes with Italy, where other social tendencies have been presented.

In the first year of its existence the festival wasn’t a competitive event. It could be called an introduction to the creative projects of famous and beginning directors. One of the main principles of the festival is that a film that participates in the festival shouldn’t be broadcast anywhere before to the public. Almost 25 thousand people have witnessed the first airings of multiple films organized on the terrace of Excelsior hotel located in Lido. By the way, getting here is possible if booking transfer in Venice.

Two years later, the film festival has acquired a competitive nature where participants from 19 countries offered their works for the contest. The event has gathered more than 300 journalists. There was no jury at that time to choose the winners: the chairman of the Venice Biennale made a small review to collect the opinion of experts and spectators. This is how the best film in the Italian language, the best international film, the best actor and actress had been chosen. The last two winners were awarded with the Volpi Cup; it’s the oldest award that is still given to best actors.

Due to Ottavio Croze, the festival became an annual event since 1935. However, there was a time when people didn’t know about it, because it was either held outside Lido or didn’t take place at all. With such a changing nature, Venice Film Festival was given a second life only in 1979 thanks to Italian film director Carlo Lizzani. He was working hard to bring back the international fame of the event, so he changed its entire organization and conduct.

How the winners of the Venice Film Festival are chosen

No more than 20 films can participate in the main contest. They are thoroughly selected by the group of Italian experts and foreign counselors, with a total amount of 9 members of the jury. The list of films that participate in the festival is kept secret until the beginning of the venue. Nowadays, there are different awards apart from traditional the Volpi Cup and the Golden Lion:

The best director gets the Silver Lion, the best LGBT-film gets the Blue Lion (starting 2007). The Lion is awarded for the best screenplay, the Lion of the Future is for the best debut work. Moreover, there’s a special prize for the best film made by young directors (under 25), Golden Ozella for the best technical aspects, music and other things that are individually defined before each event. The best young actor \ actress is awarded with the Marcello Mastroianni Award.

Other parts of the Venice Film Festival are the section called Horizons and screening out of competition films where spectators can see up to 6 films. Due to pandemic in 2020, most film festivals (including the Cannes Festival) were canceled. However, Venice Film Festival was held, and the main prizes were awarded to Hollywood films. The Golden Lion was awarded to Nomadland, starring Frances McDormand who had got Academy Award for the Best Actress for another Hollywood film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.

In different years the Golden Lion was awarded to Sofia Coppola, Alfonso Cuaron, Guillermo del Toro, Darren Aronofsky, Ang Lee and Takeshi Kitano.