As the 53rd edition of the Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica slowly moves to its end, the time has come to start drawing up balances and to predict where the awards may be going
Nothing really stands out, not from a commercial angle. Most of the big films are already spoken for anyway.' Halfway through this year's Mostra, Australian buyer Frank Cox is yet to see a movie he thought could succeed in his territory. Foreign language films, he points out, don't do much business in Australia. In recent years, he suggests, only Il Postino, Burnt By The Sun, the Three Colours trilogy and La cité des enfants perdus have bucked that particular trend. Thus far, Venice has yielded no such gems. Of the English language films in Venice, he likes Doug Liman's romantic comedy, Swingers: 'That could travel.' He was also keen to see Ferdinand Fairfax's Boat Race drama, True Blue, and to assess how other buyers reacted to much heralded Aussie film, Love And Other Catastrophes. Although still grumbling about how hard it is to track down the buyers - 'For chrissake, it only needs a piece of paper, just something saying who's staying where' - he at least professed to be enjoying himself. 'Mifed and Cannes are crazy. This is much more relaxing.'
Kerryn Negus, acquisitions and marketing associate at Nippon Herald Films, agrees that Swingers has gone down especially well. She also argues that Arturo Ripstein's Profundo Carmesi, was a strong film which could potentially do well on the art-house circuit. Another fan of Ripstein is Miranda Dear of Channel 4. She is equally enthusiastic about Peter Jackson's The Frighteners, 'But we haven't acquired anything yet.'
As ever at this stage of the festival, there are wild predictions about where the major prizes will be going. Rosa Bosch of the San Sebastián Film Festival is sure that no jury headed by Polanski would award a Golden Lion to an American film. (After all, Polanski hasn't set foot in the US since 1977, and is said to still be bitter about his recent, much publicised spat with John Travolta.) However, the Italian critics adored Julian Schnabel's Basquiat, which must surely be in line for prizes of some sort. Some were touting Ken Loach for Best Director. And many noted with interest the 10-minute standing ovation given Michael Collins after its competition screening. Geoffrey Macnab
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