The 69th Venice International Film Festival is traditionally held on the island of Lido, the northern part of which has long been the permanent home of this oldest film forum. In 2012, the opening ceremony took place on August 29, and over the next 11 days the winner of the main prize - the Golden Lion - should be determined. The main program of pretender films includes 18 films.
The film of the opening of the film festival was “Fundamentalist involuntarily” by Mira Nair, an American of Indian descent, who made the second film about the September 11, 2001 terrorist act in the USA. However, this picture is not included in the main competition program and will be shown as part of the Fuori Concorso. Together with her, another 24 films entered the out-of-competition program, including “Anton is Nearby, ” by Russian documentary writer Lyubov Arkus. Our country is also represented in the main competition - on the Lido island they will show the picture "Cycle" by Cyril Serebrennikov.
The first films of the competition show will be two American films - "Master" by Paul Thomas Anderson and "To Admiration" by Terrence Malik. Then two new works of a pair of masters from the east will be shown - the criminal action movie "Lawlessness 2" of the Japanese Takeshi Kitano and the drama about the tax collector "Pieta" of the South Korean Kim Ki Duka. The program has a film by another director from Asia - "The Womb" of Filipino Brilliante Mendoza.
Brian De Palma, whose works have not received awards at film festivals for quite some time, is represented at the competition by the painting "Passion". Olivier Assayas sent the film “Something in the Air” about the times of student unrest in France in 1968 to the film forum. The second part of the Ulrich Zaidl trilogy on the crisis of Western civilization, “Paradise: Faith, ” is also included in the program. The first part was shown this year at the Cannes Film Festival.
The main program also includes the films “Fill the Void” by Ram Bershtein, “At Any Cost” by Ramin Bahrani, “He was the son” of Daniel Sipri, “Special Day” by Francesca Comencini, “Leaping Holidays” by Harmony Corin, “Fifth Season” by Peter Brosens and Jessica Woodworth, Sleeping Beauty Marco Bellocchio, Superstar Xavier Giannoli, Wellington Valeria Sarmiento. And the festival will be closed by the drama of Jean-Pierre Amery "The Man Who Laughs, " starring Gerard Depardieu.
The festival has a separate program called "Horizons" for paintings of experimental directions. It includes 18 full-length and 15 short films, including the work of Russian Alexei Balabanov, "I also want to."
