Awards

The Golden Lion went to the Iranian film The Circle, Jafar Panahi's look at the lives of contemporary Iranian women. The Grand Jury Prize was awarded to Before Night Falls from Julian Schnabel, which had audiences buzzing a week ago after it first screened. more

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Clint Eastwood, Sharon Stone, Richard Gere and others coming soon... more

Day 10- September 8

Silver Leopard vs Venice Lions

Sounds like baseball? It's not. It's a quite different kind of sports. It's called festival marathon. And Hong Kong director Fruit Chan is one of the best athletes in this class. 4 films in 4 years and more than 10 awards on the festival circuit . A trilogy, made much faster than Star Wars, and known as the 1997 trilogy. And a new one in preparation of which Durian Durian is the first installment. Screened in competition at Venice less than one month after Little Cheung won the Silver Leopard at Locarno, Durian Durian is the first part of the new triptych that will concentrate on post-annexation imbalances in Hong Kong and China. more

Day 9- September 7

Movie Cells

Tarsem's in town! Tarsem is short for Tarsem Dhandwhar, the visionary indian director who brought you music videos such as R.E.M.'s Losing My Religion, Deep Forest's Sweet Lullaby, and many commercial spots for Levi’s, Nike, Reebok, Coca-Cola,... The 38 year-old award-winning director joins the Biennale this year for the promotion of his first feature, The Cell, screened off-competition. This New Line production stars Jennifer Lopez (back in film after a successful stint in music) as a scientist exploring the mind of a dangerous schizophrenic psychopath (Vincent d'Onofrio) in order to save his latest prey. more

Day 8- September 6

Lucas Virtually Arrives in Venice

It has been 24 hours of no-shows and virtual shows in Lido. Yesterday, George Lucas delivered a virtual press conference from nearby Caserta, where he is shooting the sequel to The Phantom Menace. The Caserta scenes will represent the planet Naboo, which is a culturally rich society, very similar to the Italian one. Lucas spoke about using only digital cameras and being the first big-budget film in history to do so. He compared the transition to digital filmmaking with the switch from fresco paniting to oils, saying that technical advances do not negate the work that preceded them.more

Day 7- September 5

Fine Line Buys Before Night Falls

Last night, Liam from Stephen Frears received a warm-to-lukewarm response, but it was the young star of the film, Anthony Borrows, who charmed the hearts of audience members. He plays a stuttering, seven year old boy (Liam) in an Irish Catholic neighborhood near Liverpool - a performance that has been compared with that of the little boy in Life is Beautiful. Burrows was in Lido along with the rest of the Liam team for the press conference today, minus his trademark stutter from the film. more

Day 6- September 4

Venice Says Buongiorno to Bon Jovi

"La rockstar"-turned-actor Jon Bon Jovi arrived in Venice yesterday to promote the submarine thriller U-571, which screened in the Sogni e Visioni section last night. The film from director Jonathan Mostow is the story of American submarine sailors in World War 2 who risk their lives in order to help defeat the Germans. The screening was tainted by irony, as most people were reminded of the Russian sailors who perished late last month aboard the Kursk. In their honor, producer De Laurentis called for a minute of silence before he introduced the film. more

Day 5- September 3

Lido Loves The Man Who Cried

Festival jitters breezed by Sunday, Day Four of the Venice Festival. Without a cloud above the Lido, projections screened smoothly and the program seems to have settled for the rest of the fest. Venice Director Alberto Barbera could not have planned a better weekend for the world's oldest festival on the circuit. more

Day 4- September 2

Brother Bedazzles Venice Crowd

More celebrities sailed into Venice this weekend, keeping the star-gazing lively here in Lido. Cate Blanchett, Christina Ricci, and Johnny Depp are in town for Sally Potter's The Man Who Cried; Michelle Pfeiffer and Harrison Ford arrived yesterday to promote What Lies Beneath, a thriller about a seemingly perfect couple who are haunted by an infidelity.Many of the cast and crew from The Isle took some time to unwind last night at the lavish party thrown by the Korean group Coalition for Cultural Diversity in Moving Images. The Isle is the hot topic here at Lido and the film received some extra attention when, in one screening, a woman passed out during a graphic scene. more

Day 3- September 1

State and Main, Mamet Slated for Venice

Venice Festival Director Alberto Barbera may have lost the Scorcese pic earlier this week, but he had good news yesterday for cinephiles here in Lido. David Mamet's State and Main, which stars Alec Baldwin, has been officially added to the program. Given Mamet's international fanfare, this makes one more film the Lido crowd will clamor to see. more

Day 2 - August 31

Hal Hartley's Kimono added to Program

Now that the festival is underway, the talk has turned to films here in Lido. The screening of Seom (The Isle) was called to an emergency halt when one audience member broke down and nearly passed out. One wonders if the graphic scenes involving bait and human body parts triggered the woman's attack. Other audience members were so disgusted with its audacity that they booed during the film. In other festival news, Hal Hartley's film Kimono has been added to the schedule and will screen in the "Cinema of the Present" sidebar this weekend. more

Opening Night

Day 1 - August 30: Sharon Stone Woos the Public and Sinks a Parparazzi

A vaporetto ride away from the canals of Venice, Sharon Stone warmed the hearts of Italians and festival-goers alike when she sashayed down the white carpet before the screening of Clint Eastwood's Space Cowboys. The roar of the crowd could not have been better timed to match the onslaught of rain which fell right as Stone arrived with husband, newspaper mogul Phil Bronstein. In her presentation of Eastwood, she praised his acting and directing strengths, and noted that actors grow in their profession by "listening and learning his extraordinary humanity." more

Pre-fest News

Venice World Premiere Says Ciao
Organizers of the Venice Film Festival were outraged last week to learn that USA Films was withdrawing Series 7: The Contenders from the festival. The film, a dark comedy that parodies reality-based TV shows, was slated to have its world premiere in the Dreams and Visions midnight line-up before screening at the Toronto International Film Festival one week later. The studio has opted instead to try to screen the film at the Sundance festival in January, closer to its release date in February 2001. Alberto Barbera, the director of Venice, called the decision "unprofessional, unacceptable and unethical" and was forced to find a replacement.

Presentation

The Biennale's Mostra Internazionale D'arte Cinematografica is to open with Space Cowboys, directed by Clint Eastwood who stars alongside Tommy Lee Jones, James Garner and Donald Sutherland. The Golden Lion of Lifetime Achievement will be presented to Clint Eastwood during the Opening Ceremony. The film is about four retired pilots, recalled by NASA for a special mission following their exclusion from the space program in the 1960's because of their nonconformist behavior. more...

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