Venetian Festival: the best films, awards and prizes. Venetian International Film Festival

The Venetian Festival is one of the oldest film festivals around the world, founded by Benito Mussolini, a famous odious person. But over the long years of its existence, from 1932 to the present day, the film festival opened to the world not only American, French and German filmmakers, screenwriters, actors, but also Soviet, Japanese, Iranian cinema.

Venice is a city of the arts

It is known that in Venice, art began to show already since 1895. This year there was the world's first exhibition of paintings, later named the Venice Biennale. And already beginning from the thirties of the twentieth century, at the festival began to show the achievements of theatrical and musical art. Thus, the Venice Festival collected all the achievements of human art.

Previously, the festival was held on the island of Lido after the end of the winter, now the admirers of cinema on the island come in August and September. Many remember that Mussolini himself and Count Giuseppe Volpi, members of the fascist organization, opened the international film show, but the Italians themselves are relatively calm about this. This page of history fans of spaghetti has already been closed.

Cannes and Rome Film Festivals

The Venetian Festival served as the opening of two other film festivals. The famous Cannes, opened in 1939, and Roman, which opened just recently, just eleven years ago. In Cannes, the French moved only because in those years at the festival in Lido preferences were given to German films. But the Rome Festival was created to protect Italian cinema from the invasion of American cinema.

Nevertheless, in Rome and in Cannes, Americans are still traveling with undisguised pleasure. And yet the Venice Film Festival is the first festival in the quality of awards and prestige, the second place is the Cannes Festival, and then all the rest.

The first grand prize

It's interesting that at the first film festival the main prize was the painting by Nikolai Eck "A Voyage to Life". This is a film about homeless people filmed in the Soviet Union. And in 1935 the American film "Anna Karenina" with Greta Garbo in the title role became a prize-winner at this festival. In 1951, the Venice Film Festival presented the main award - the Golden Lion - to the Japanese director Akira Kurosawa for the film Rasemon.

Masters of Italian neo-realism Fellini, Visconti, Rossellini, Antonioni for the first time received well-deserved awards in Venice, as well as French masters - Jean-Luc Godard and Alain Rene - gained popularity due to the fact that they came to the Venice International Art Festival.

Venice did not bypass the Soviet art either. So, the film "Sadko" by Alexander Ptushko, as well as the screen version of Chekhov's "Bouncy" Samson Samsonov received their "Silver Lions" in the middle of the last century.

Thanks to the Venice International Film Festival the whole world learned about Andrei Tarkovsky, who received the "Golden Lion" for the painting "Ivan's Childhood".

Difficult times for the festival

In addition to triumph, the festival remembers the "black days", when it had to be closed twice. For the first time this happened during the Second World War, when it was not until the festivals, and the second time - in the late sixties. The Italian government decided to introduce its own rules into the competition programs, which ultimately led to the complete cancellation of the festival.

Venetian Film Festival. Prizewinners and winners in a few years

He revived only in 1979, and did not abolish those rules that were before. The rules of the Venice International Film Festival include strict conditions. The films of the main competition are not eligible to be shown in other festivals, the public should never see them somewhere. In 2010, this condition led to a scandal at the Russian film festival "Kinotavr - 2010", when the picture was removed from the competition "Oatmeal" to participate in the festival in Venice.

The best films of the Venice Film Festival receive gold and silver awards in the form of lions. There is a prize of Marcello Mastroianni to the best young actor or actress, the Volpi Cups for Best Actor and Best Actress are awarded, there is a special jury prize, and script writers and operators receive their awards.

For the entire history of the festival, three directors were honored to twice become "Golden Lion" laureates. These are André Cayat, Louis Mull and Zhang Yimou. In addition to "Ivan's Childhood", the main prize received films by Russian directors - Nikita Mikhalkov ("Urga") and "Return" by Alexei Zvyagintsev.

Andrei Konchalovsky's film at the 2016 festival

The Venetian festival film Andrei Konchalovsky "Paradise", where the Russian, German and French actors starred, appreciated. The painting received the Silver Lion. His director, Love Diaz, went around with his film "The Woman Who Left."

The jury included well-known directors and actors such as Gemma Arterton, Chiara Mastorianni, Vicki Zhaoni, Nina Hoss, Laurie Anderson and others. Headed in 2016 the film festival director Sam Mendes. In addition to the "Silver Wing Lion," Andrei Konchalovsky received other unofficial awards. The director said that he was interested in the inner world of heroes, how they fight themselves with good and evil and that wins.

For the first time at the Venice International Film Festival, Andrei Konchalovsky was in 1962 as co-author of Andrei Tarkovsky's film "Ivan's Childhood". In 2014 he presented to the public at this film festival the painting "The White Nights of the Postman Alexei Tryapitsyn", which ended the director's trilogy about the Russian outback. The painting received the "Silver Winged Lion". Konchalovsky, known as the director of several blockbusters in Hollywood, is always welcome and welcomed in Venice.

To greet him on the red carpet, the audience gathered two hours before the premiere. The film "Paradise" is an author's cinema, shot in black and white, and similar in construction to documentary. Three actors - Julia Vysotskaya, who played a Russian aristocrat, the German actor Christian Klaus, who played the role of SS officer and Frenchman Philippe Duquesne, who played the collaborator Jules - keep the auditorium busy for almost two hours. After the premiere, the spectators stood applauding to everyone who created this film.

Other prize-winners of the Venetian festival

Also, the "Silver Lion" received another director Amat Escalante for the film "The Wilderness". The prize for the best male role went to actor Oscar Martinez for his work in the film "The Famous Citizen", and the prize for the best female role was won by the wonderful American actress Emma Stone, who played in La La Land.

Young actress Paula Bear won the Marcello Mastroianni Award for her acting debut in François Ozon's Franz. There were many more official and unofficial prizes and awards.

The main thing is that the festival lives an active life and makes us happy with the novelties of this movie.