If no selection criteria for the Venice Film Festival, is the ability to captivate a film, festival director says.
That means no public concern.
“I never laughed or cried so much as I did for the selection of this year,” said festival director Marco Mueller raised the curtain on Wednesday at the 66th Venice Film Festival, his sixth as a director.
One of these films is elected “by Michael Moore, Capitalism: A Love Story,” its first entry into Venice after winning first prize at Cannes twice. By many measures, the landing in Moore’s film is a blow to Venice.
“I think Michael has had a great time in Cannes. I needed a change. And we need a different film Michael Moore. This is incredibly symphony,” said Muller, who has known Moore for 20 years and was released in 1999 “The Awful Truth “at the Locarno Film Festival when he was director.
Much of the focus of Mueller to attract films the Venice Lido is personal. He speaks seven languages including Chinese, who have long made him a bridge to the west for Asian filmmakers. He spends a substantial amount of time watching movies, more than 2,000 a year, and why do launches Venice is the ideal launching pad for everything from food to the talents of Hollywood Art House, despite its lack of a market formal film.
This year’s Venice Film Festival Sept. 2.12 film is a week later than usual, bumping against the much larger Toronto Film Festival, showing some 80 films in contrast to the more than 300 in the Toronto Film Festival Sept. 10-19.
About 20 films making their world premiere at Venice travel to Toronto, where he performs most of the dealmaking for the North American market.
But Mueller does not intend to carry a film market in Venice.
“It’s a luxury to be told by filmmakers and producers:” Never start a market in Venice, because it is the only place we can meet people and watch movies from other people, ’ “he said.
Mergers and acquisitions in Venice happens in a much more informal, Mueller said.
“When people meet, they can say:” I have this new idea for a movie. “Then suddenly on the terrace of the Hotel Des Bains, a letter of agreement is signed for the production of a new movie,” he said.
Mueller, 56, is convinced that a sample of the festival can change the trajectory of success of a film and a profile that Venice is high enough to provide the ideal platform for the mean range budget Hollywood movies.
During the festival last year, one of the founders of Sony Classic saw a man using a stopwatch to measure the applause at the premiere of “Rachel Getting Married”, which lasted nine or 10 minutes, said Mueller. The man was a group of German film distributors, which expanded the release of the film based on the applause of the audience in Venice.
Also, “Kathryn Bigelow, Hurt Locker,” received a standing ovation 10 minutes, despite a mixed critical reaction. “However, the movie went in the first impact, the first response in Venice. It is an agreement in North America in Toronto and went on to become one of the blockbusters of last season,” said Mueller.
“We really try to show that we can extend the life of a movie – although it may be only in the sphere of circulation too long festival – due to the high visibility that we create,
The selection of this year in Venice includes films from 32 countries, a record, with many U.S. and Italian films, 17 and 22 entries respectively. For Mueller, one of his biggest hits was attracting four films from India, a country with a huge domestic market and foreign distribution determined by large populations of India and abroad.
“They were always, we need festivals,” said Mueller. However, attracted both the extravagance of Bollywood cinema and art to persuade the makers of a movie that would cross another response from a Western audience.
Closer to home, an Italian film festival opens for the first time in 20 years. Giuseppe Tornatore, who won an Oscar in 1998 for “Cinema Paradiso”, will premiere “Baari” a film about life in a small town in his native Sicily.
“Baari is really what the (Italian) from the industry needed right now,” Mueller said. “A film that shows it makes sense for industry to invest heavily in the dream of a creator, because then the industry can return to being the dream machine.”
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