The Venice International Film Festival usually marks the start of awards season proper. To say this is a very different year after Covid-19 and lockdowns and the tentacle effect that the streamers have had on the business seems redundant: in these times, there’s always an existential threat.
The writers’ strike and the SAG-AFTRA shutdown – which hurts all parts of the global business no matter where you work or come from – is just the most recent crisis, albeit one with more overt moral complications. How do you walk down a red carpet in Venice knowing the same contracted crews you work with are unemployed thanks to stoppages, even if you have an exemption?
Strange times, aren’t they? But these are old problems, about fairness and ownership and profit, tricked up in new tech. The effects of the streamer boom and the global box office bonanza just means we are all more clearly connected than before. No man – or woman – is an island. And despite everything, Alberto Barbera has put together a strong line-up. Ted Sarandos may even swoop in to restore world peace before Venice opens, and everyone can put their moral dilemmas back on simmer.
Talking of age-old problems, or being isolated and, perhaps even, gaslit, it has been a confusing few days for women in the entertainment business. You have the eloquent SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher filling TikTok and Instagram with her defiant soundbites. You have Greta Gerwig, storming the box office (great for a woman, no?) with Barbie, a body-slam against the patriarchy, dressed up in neon pink and Margot Robbie’s guileless performance. Look at all those women filling the cinemas and filing into Barbie kiosks, whooping at America Ferrera’s speeches. Who rules the world? Girls!
Days later – although it felt like minutes – Venice chief Alberto Barbera had his own response while announcing this year’s line-up. “Still far from the gender parity we all hope for,” he said, ruefully, which is actually a progression from the old line of ‘women aren’t making good enough films’. Claiming 30 percent of the 82-film line-up is female-directed, he didn’t acknowledge that statistic doesn’t stretch as far as Competition, where four of the 23 films are female directed, and one other co-directed by a woman. Many people have complained how boring it is to read the same stories about lack of female representation at Venice every year: not as pointlessly tedious as it is to write them, rest assured. But on we all go.
There are a lot of older male directors showing their films at Venice this year, which is a great and exciting thing (if nothing new), but it does also feel like the spirit of renewal and change exemplified by guerrilla TikTok campaigns and passionate strikes and Fran and Barbie and Greta is also being crushed by the weight of the past. And not all of the past is good. Seeing Roman Polanski (pled guilty to sex with a minor and fled), Woody Allen (accused of sexual abuse of a child but never charged), and Luc Besson (acquitted of sexual abuse on multiple counts) on the same billboard is confusing, no matter what your ‘politics’ are….it’s a lot of baggage for one single festival to carry.
In this head-snapping swirl of where-are-we-now, it feels strange to remember that the same Greta Gerwig herself said she’d never work with Allen again back in 2018, and that this time last year we were all looking forward to watching She Said, about the New York Times investigation which brought down Harvey Weinstein. The Venice line-up makes it seem like we could shortly find out that his memoirs have been optioned. The so-called culture wars rage like the wildfires across Europe, but is anyone ever truly ‘cancelled’?
So much to discuss at Venice 2023! So many potholes to fall into for the talent – writer/directors included – who turn up at the press conferences. Ask Lucrecia Martel, chair of the jury when Polanski’s last film premiered at Venice. She agreed that it was right J’Accuse was there – “I don’t separate the artist from the art” – but added that she didn’t want to attend a celebratory dinner for a man who pled guilty to unlawful sex with a 13 year-old-child. How the fur flew! That seemingly unsurprising statement – Martel is well-known as a vocal defender of womens’ rights at home in Argentina – suddenly landed her in extremely hot water. (That was 2019, the year where there were only two films directed by women in Competition.) But look, Polanski is back, so we can play the game all over again until someone passes out from exhaustion in the heat.
Speaking of traps, it’s interesting to see Ava DuVernay competing at Venice, with Origin, her adaptation of Isabel Wilkinson’s book Caste: The Origins Of Our Discontent. Barbera seemed to infer, in his announcement, that European audiences weren’t familiar with her work. But DuVernay is known and loved worldwide. Apart from being a forcefully talented filmmaker, she’s a social and racial activist, a feminist, and a very eloquent woman. Now that’s a red carpet/press conference not to be missed.
Life in showbusiness, what a whirl. (Spare a thought too for the couture houses and high-end jewellers – two of Venice’s headline sponsors are Armani and Cartier. Who’s going to show off the fall collections? It could be the greatest gathering of influencers since… Cannes.) Perhaps we’re in the middle of a feminist conspiracy?
One thing’s for sure: AI couldn’t make it up.
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