Alberto Barbera, director of Venice Film Festival, can breathe a sigh of relief. This year’s line-up may well prove to have achieved his vision of a top-end festival founded on quality, innovation and returning participants with two years of his mandate to spare.
Speaking to Screen International ahead of welcoming international delegates and talent to this year’s event, the festival’s longest-serving director discusses his recipe for success and outlines the strategy for these “confusing” and “complex” times, characterised by major adjustments in the industry.
From embattled Ukrainian directors, Iranian counterparts in custody and other filmmakers at risk supported through dedicated initiatives, through to streamers, US studios and large and smaller arthouse producers, all are welcome if they meet the standards of quality. Barbera has pursued innovation — in 2017, introducing the first VR competition at a major festival — even when risky, and the films he selects benefit from a massive international media presence, which has doubled in the past decade, Venice’s “light market” and the festival spotlight that is cast across the programme. Venice in turn, he notes, benefits from being the launchpad of choice for US premieres with aspirations for the upcoming awards season.
Barbera’s third consecutive term was confirmed last year and will run through to 2024. He originally oversaw the festival from 1999 to 2002 before returning in 2012. Venice’s 79th edition will be the first characterised with a return to pre-pandemic normality as Covid-19 restrictions are scrapped.
What’s your typical day during the festival?
My workday starts at 9am when I meet with my closest collaborators and the general manager to discuss the day’s events and the important appointments as well as any issues that can arise or problems that can be foreseen. After this, I have meetings, appointments and interviews, also with directors and producers and institutional representatives from other festivals. Then, at around noon, I rush over to the press conferences to meet the directors and actors that I haven’t yet had the chance to meet and greet, after which the red carpets start at around 2pm.
From that moment on I attend a red carpet at least every few hours. Between 2pm and 11pm there can be red carpets every 15 minutes for the various competitions in Venice. I go from one screening room to another, one red carpet to another, one meeting to another – I never stop. It’s very important to have a very comfortable pair of shoes, as I am constantly moving around from one place to the other.
What do you do for meals?
It’s the biggest difficulty I have, to be honest: finding the time to eat something. It’s often impossible until very late in the evening, so I eat around 10, 10:30 at night.
Do you drop in on all the parties?
Given this very tight schedule, I am never in a position to be able to attend the parties or the dinners or the sponsor events. They primarily take place in Venice and so it’s impossible. It would mean me getting on a boat, rushing over, greeting everyone and then immediately rushing back for the next red carpet. It’s not that I don’t want to go, it’s simply that I don’t have the time to be able to go.
There are some rare instances where I attend due to institutional reasons, and in those cases I manage to go for 10 minutes before rushing back by boat to be at the next red carpet. This all continues until around midnight, until I manage to get away to get some sleep at around 12, 12.30am. Clearly, I am pretty much exhausted at this point, but I do manage to get six or seven hours of sleep before I get up and start all over again around 7am. The first thing I do [each morning] is read my messages and look at the press coverage from the previous day’s events.
How much coffee do you drink during the festival?
I try not to exaggerate with coffees; I try and limit them to three or four a day. I do however take vitamins in the mornings and again in the evenings in large doses to see me through the very intense days.
Looking at this year’s line-up, what themes characterise Venice this year?
Daily existence, family routines and relationships between parents and children that have suffered during the pandemic emerge in many of the films. Political films are also present, highlighting situations of tension in certain countries and geographical areas. Both reflect a tendency to focus on the complex present, with reflexive and dramatic tones.
We will be introducing new initiatives during this edition, one dedicated to the Ukraine war, the other in support of Iranian directors.
What can you tell us about the Iran and Ukraine initiatives?
We are holding a panel on September 3 in collaboration with the International Committee of Filmmakers at Risk, which was created two years ago to support filmmakers in difficulty. It has already carried out some important battles and achieved some great results. The panel will give an overview of the events of the past 12 months in terms of filmmakers in distress, some of whom have been arrested and convicted.
On September 9 we will hold a flash mob on the red carpet of the premiere for Jafar Panahi’s film (No Bears), who won’t be attending as he is in prison with two of his colleagues. We will call on all filmmakers and other personalities to join in and we will hold signs asking for them to be released. One of his actresses will be there, and it will bring global attention to their plight. It aims to be a powerful political message that draws media attention to this issue.
And in collaboration with the Ukrainian embassy, we are organising a day on September 8 dedicated to the Ukrainian filmmakers present in Venice, and other filmmakers and creatives that we will try and bring to Venice. The events will include panels, discussions and other events and perhaps the outcome could be some formal request that a solution be found to a situation that seems very far away from reaching one.
What is the message you hope the public will take away from Venice this year?
Cinema is not dead — it’s alive, flourishing. It changes and will change. There are many talented new young directors from all over the world, including from countries with no cinematic tradition. This gives great hope for cinema, for the relationship with the public being rebuilt after two years of lockdowns. It speaks to renewal in terms of language, themes, models and narrative, of the will to change over and above the capacity to change. It accounts for difficulties in this changing industry, including new and unexpected challenges up ahead.
What was your vision at the time of your 2012 appointment, and did you achieve it?
At the time I was reticent [to join]. Paolo [Baratta, then president of La Biennale di Venezia] convinced me. I told him I would, conditional to our agreeing on a vision for the festival’s future. He invited me to dinner at his home in Rome in the autumn of 2011. We drew up the plan; we discussed things at length around the dinner table. The key was quality, being more film-selective while opening up to the wider public, all the while embracing innovative projects like Biennale College and the VR prize that previously didn’t exist.
Venice has in past years built up a privileged stature. When I took over in 2012, it was suffering competition from Toronto, Telluride and New York. The Hollywood studios and large US production companies would skip Venice in favour of the North American festival circuit. I am proud to say that, truth be told, Venice was able to renew itself more than other festivals. We took on challenges, ran risks and were innovative.
Toronto at that time was the main autumn festival, the key appointment for buyers and sales agents. Venice struggled to get US blockbusters. A large international festival will not function without US Hollywood studios and independent production companies. We got to work right away on rebuilding relationships and convincing the US people to come back. It was a long and complex job. “Too expensive, no returns!” they would say. So twice a year I travel to LA to explain Venice, our repositioning and the big renovation works we were carrying out. I would talk about all this to the big studios and producers.
We did not want an elite, niche festival, supporting only radical and marginal arthouse films. Instead, we wanted a festival that reflected contemporary cinema, aimed at the general public with quality that in past years hadn’t always been guaranteed.
What are the ramifications of premiering more Oscar-nominated and Oscar-winning films than any other festival?
Rebuilding the relationships with the studios was a long and arduous task. Films we selected that ended up at the Oscars helped, including Gravity early on in 2013. Perhaps Warner Bros didn’t imagine it would have such a massive impact on Venice, and in some way the outcome contributed to its commercial success and to bringing it to the Oscars, where it won best director [for Alfonso Cuaron].
Venice has always brought luck to US films aspiring to the Academy Awards. Birdman opened 2014, and won four Oscars including best film. Spotlight also won, as did The Shape Of Water, Nomadland, La La Land. Every year Venice would bring one or more films to the Oscars.
You also put more focus on the business side of the festival in a bid to attract more industry delegates. How successful have you been in that regard?
On my return, the festival was focused on aesthetics and artistic aspects. This favoured competitors, in particular Toronto. I immediately launched a ‘light market’, the Venice Production Bridge, which has grown over the years and now has about 3,000 participants.
This year we are focusing on two countries, France and Taiwan, and some 50 projects with 60%-70% funding that need to close the budget will be presented. There is also a rights market for literary works and matchmaking activities, one-to-one meetings. This has returned a function to the festival it didn’t have 10 years ago.
What will be your strategy in the remaining two years of your mandate?
I plan to pursue this vision embracing innovation in the audiovisual sector. It characterises Venice when compared with more conservative festivals that are tied to the past, not to the present and future of cinema. This includes our VR competition. I suspect my successors will continue to do the same.
What will Venice’s Covid-19 policy be this year?
The situation will be normal. We will ask people to be prudent, but there are no mandatory obligations. Many are vaccinated. I got vaccinated as soon as possible; I just had my fourth booster. I have never had Covid. I am aiming to have the fifth booster that covers many variants at the end of 2022 when it is released.
Is your outlook positive about the international film industry?
We’re in a rapidly changing environment. There is much confusion; the situation is not clear. Streaming platforms in this context mustn’t be seen as adversaries. We must make compromises. There will be readjustments during which new rules will emerge. Cinemas will not disappear — the opposite will happen. A two-tier system will develop and the public will benefit thanks to higher-quality, wider-choice offerings.
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