Venice Competition jury head Damien Chazelle and his fellow competition jurors offered their support to the striking actors and writers in the US, at the opening press conference for the 80th Venice Film Festival.
Chazelle and competition jurors directors Martin McDonagh and Laura Poitras wore T-shirts with the words ‘Writers Guild on strike’, while Chazelle gave an impassioned response to the opening question about the strike.
“There’s a basic idea that each work of art has value unto itself. It’s not just a piece of content to be put into a pipeline,” said the US director. “That idea and how art can be made sustainable has been eroded quite a bit over the past 10 years.”
“That’s the core issue, that’s the debate about residuals,” he continued. “It comes down to the idea of people being remunerated for each piece of art that is made. Can we maintain and get back that idea, [of] art over content? We’re here to acknowledge that struggle is going on. Otherwise, a lot of people who would’ve loved to be here are not able to be here.”
“It’s a difficult time in Hollywood – for working actors, writers but also crew – we wanted to find some way to acknowledge that while we’re celebrating the art of cinema.”
Venice artistic director Alberto Barbera reiterated his message that the strikes have had limited effect on the festival, despite the absence of major stars for studio and streaming platform films such as Bradley Cooper’s Maestro and Poor Things starring Emma Stone.
“The impact will be felt, some very important actors will be missing,” said Barbera. “But it’s not as bad as it seemed at first; during the first few days we really risked losing the American component of the festival. They will be here.”
Chazelle spoke warmly about the cinematic qualities of Venice, which he described as “the best festival in the world”, and where he has launched two of his films: La La Land and First Man.
“There is something about Venice which lends itself to cinema and the idea of films as a dream state, it feels like a city that’s not quite real, but of course it is real – that makes it particularly suitable for a celebration of cinema,” said the director.
“It’s silly, there’s this unreality to it,” said Chazelle. “Whatever kind of cinema is being celebrated, at the end of the day cinema is some kind of waking dream.That to me is Venice.”
Chazelle is joined on the director-heavy competition jury by McDonagh, Poitras, Jane Campion, Mia Hansen-Love, Palestinian actor Saleh Bakri, Italian director Gabriele Mainetti, Argentinian filmmaker Santiago Mitre and Chinese actress Shu Qi.
They were joined by Italian director Jonas Carpignano, who heads the Horizons jury, and French filmmaker Alice Diop who chairs the Luigi De Laurentiis award for best debut film.
The panel at the opening press conference consisted of Chazelle, Carpignano, Diop, plus Barbera and festival president Roberto Cicutto. The rest of the competition jurors were in attendance, in the first rows of the audience.
The festival will open this evening (August 30) with Edoardo De Angelis’ Italian title Comandante, which stepped into the opening spot following the withdrawal of Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers due to the SAG-AFTRA strike.
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