29th August 2008

We expected to see Charlize Teron and Kim Basinger too - taking part, today, in the Film Festival with ‘The Burning Plain’ - at the sparkling soirée that last night involved two exceptional Venetian locations, namely the Theatre La Fenice and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, the first one prepared for the presentation of the documentary ‘The last emperor’ and the second one for the Party in honour of Valentino, doubly celebrated: in a film and in his real life. On the contrary none of them was present, though there were actually some celebrities: Eva Herzigova, Eva Riccobono, Liz Hurley, Diane Kruger, the young Carolina Crescentini, Afef, Eliana Miglio, Gaia Bermani Amaral, the icon Elsa Martinelli, Matteo Marzotto and Lapo Elkann. After standing ovation welcoming Valentino at the Sala Grande at Lido, yesterday afternoon many more applauses at the Theatre La Fenice, where in the foyer for this occasion a retrospective exhibition with thirty creations of the maison has been organized. And after the Fenice everybody was invited to Ca’Corner dei Leoni, namely the place of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, where Vanity Fair and Vogue Italia offered the stylist a great party with one thousand candles illuminating the garden and the terrace, as well as flowery decorations and waiters in dark blue uniforms.
Charlize Teron, instead, delighted people with her presence and all her amazing beauty this morning at Lido; she wore a wonderful fuchsia dress. She presents her competing film ‘The Burning Plain’ by Gulliermo Arriaga, the scriptwriter of Inarritu, who has worked as a film director for the first time. C. Teron, besides being, with Kim Basinger, one of the protagonists, is also the producer of this intense and dramatic film developed on more temporal and spatial levels and dealing with four stories that, like the film director has explained today during a press conference, are based on the main natural elements: fire, air, earth and water. Her interpretation is perfect, showing once more that besides being very beautiful, she is very good too, and the film too has won a deep emotion and the applauses of the public of critics and journalists of this morning.

Tania Danieli

28th august 2008
Yesterday Manoel De Oliveira, who is now centenarian, started the opening Ceremony of the 65th Venice Film Festival in front of a worshipping public who stood applauding Venice – 65th International Film Festival. As the opening ceremony his great work in the cinematographic world.
Soon afterwards the new masterpiece of the Coen Brothers was projected, still they, not being satisfied with the three Oscars they had just won with ‘It is not a country for the old’, present their ‘Burning after reading’, completely changing genre: it is an irreverent bitter and cynical comedy lining up a stellar cast, namely stars bound to become unexpectedly grotesque as they are placed in nearly surrealistic situations. Just not long beforehand, these actors, and particularly Brad Pitt and George Clooney, literally had sent into a frenzy the crown who had been crouched down since the morning out of the Palazzo del Cinema, in order to get their autographs. The Festival has given us a sparkling opening and looks like very interesting despite the fact that there will not be many great stars from Hollywood next days and in spite of the arguments about the temporal closeness to the Rome Festival and Toronto’s one, which represents, according to everybody, the fact causing the shortage of presences. Anyway the programme is rich in films by famous directors, such as ‘Akires to kame’ by Takeshi Kitano, ‘The Perfect Day’ by Opzetek and ‘The

27th August 2008
The 65th International Film Festival started yesterday (one day in advance compared to the official date) with the arrival of prominent international film stars. George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Tilda Swinton, John Malkovic and the Coen Brothers, respectively actors and directors of the film opening the festival, ‘Burn after reading’, have been among the 120 hosts taking part in the Party organized at the Granai of Giudecca. The Charity event has been arranged by Manuele Malenotti by Belstaff together with the Noow (Not on our watch) Foundation, created by Pitt and Clooney themselves with Matt Damon, that will gather funds for the starving people in Darfur. There were also Angelina Jolie, Ksenia Rappoport, Valeria Golino and Riccardo Scamarcio, Wim Wenders and Lola Ponce who also sang the opening phases of a song for her boyfriend, namely Belstaff’s patron, and precisely ‘Malenotti no’.
Tonight the actors of the new long-awaited film by the Coen Brothers are going to take part in the real Inauguration Ceremony at the Palazzo del Cinema, before the projection of ‘Burn after reading’ at the Sala Grande and then they will be present at the great Party organized, like every year, on the Terrace along the Beach (which has been built just for such event) of the Westin Excelsior Hotel.

An unprecedented display, with a centrepiece of three Golden Lions flying towards the new Palazzo, has been created this year by Dante Ferretti for the set design of the 65th Venice Film Festival (27th August – 6th September, 2008).
In this way, Dante Ferretti (two Oscars for The Aviator in 2005 and Sweeney Todd in 2008, and eight nominations) continues his artistic enhancement of the set designs for the Venice Film Festival, which began in 2004 with the spectacular creation of the now legendary sixty winged Golden Lions.
Following in the wake of the massive “Felliniesque” sphere, which in 2007 symbolically knocked down the historical Palazzo, this year will see the Lions return to centre-stage in the new external set design, which will provide the backdrop for the red carpet. The focus will be on a huge 5 metre high Golden Lion - the traditional symbol of the Festival - tearing through the white screen covering the front of the old

Monday September 1st will see Natalie Portman cutting the ribbon for the Corto Cortissimo section, the international competition of Short Films at the 65th Venice Film Festival.
Eve, the directorial debut by the young American actress (Queen Padmé Amidala in Star Wars, and star of films including Léon, Closer, V for Vendetta, The Darjeeling Limited), will open - out of competition - the first of three programmes of the line-up curated by Stefano Martina, in cooperation with Giuliana La Volpe. Featuring two icons of American cinema in the shape of Lauren Bacall and Ben Gazzara, who have lent their gloriously-lined features and talent to a civilised comedy on the third age fuelled by amorous dalliances, Portman’s film is, however, just the first of many American productions selected this year. Among these is The Butcher’s Shop, a melange of cinema and video-art and a refined rereading of a famous canvas by the 14th century painter Annibale Carracci, directed by the veteran Philip Haas (Up at the Villa, Angels and Insects), the Kammerspiel co-directed by the Italians Giacomo Gatti and Francesco Carrozzini 1937, entirely set in the notorious Chelsea Hotel in New York, and - as the closing film, also out of competition - Jarred by Martin Gaiss.

runs 2 to 18 October 2008

77 composers and 34 concerts performed by 13 leading ensembles –instrumental and vocal– 3 orchestras, 8 solists, and meetings, seminars, workshops to form a rich, packed programme for the 52nd International Festival of Contemporary Music, to be held in Venice between the 2nd and 18th October 2008.
Roots / Future, the title chosen for the Festival by the new director, Luca Francesconi, is the underlying theme of the “tale” that unfolds through the concerts planned. In each of them, the roots co-exist with the future: young composers or from the mid-generation, whether newcomers or established, appear alongside some great masters who have left their mark on 20th-century music and beyond, in a series of references multiplying the meanings and offering new significance to the works presented.
For Francesconi,  Roots / Future means “reflecting about that which has left a trace, starting with the young

The new series of screenings and restorations of the 65th Venice Film Festival (27 August - 6 September 2008), directed by Marco Müller and organised by La Biennale di Venezia, will be dedicated to These Phantoms: Italian Cinema Rediscovered (1946 – 1975). The project has been realised by the Festival in co-production with the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia – Cineteca Nazionale, the institutional organization responsible for promoting and restoring the Italian film heritage, with the support of the Ministry for Cultural Affairs.
As part of the Permanent activities and cultural collections that have been rediscovered and restored, the selection of These Phantoms: Italian Cinema Rediscovered (1946 – 1975) represents the ideal continuation of the work started in 2004 and which, for all of the last four years, has successfully revived little-known areas of Italian cinema (Italian Kings of the Bs, The Italian underground, Casanova on the Screen, Tribute to Fulvio Lucisano, Rossellini centenary, Soldati, Visconti, Italian-style Westerns), alongside the international workshops of the Secret History of Asian cinema in 2005 and the Secret History of Russian cinema in 2006.
The These Phantoms: Italian Cinema Rediscovered (1946 – 1975) retrospective is curated by Tatti Sanguineti and Sergio Toffetti and comprises the screening of about 30 films made during the three finest decades of Italian cinema: namely between 1946 and 1975.

11th May 2008
Venice Lagoon

The Vogalonga is the well known regatta which since 1974 has taken place in Venice on a Sunday in May. Born in order to protest against the water traffic along the Canal Grande and the necessity to protect the lagoon town from the wave-motion caused by the boats with outboard motors (a phenomenon which brings about the erosion of the foundations of the most beautiful Palaces), nowadays it has lost its protesting character and has become an evocative sports celebration you must not miss. From the morning a thick stretch of multi-coloured boats gather in St. Mark’s Basin. From here the 32 km rowing race starts and it moves as far as the islands of the Northern Lagoon in order, then, to go back to the Canal Grande. Everybody, along the canals, supports and greets the participants who, in the latest years, have been of any nationality. Actually it is an amazing and very folk Feast you must not miss.

May 4, 2008
(TRANSLATED WITH GOOGLE AUTOMATIC TRANSLATION)
In the past centuries the Sensa  feast has played an important role in social and political life of Venice, it has been one of the most important and sumptuous celebrations , which became legend, myth and history of the city. The famous festival, in which the Doge on  the Bucintoro, launched a ring off the waters of San Pietro di Castello, the famous Wedding with the sea, still celebrated by the city authorities: a reconstruction of many boats and of the the Bucintoro boat  will sail  along the San Marco dock, the Mayor of the city then  throws the ring in Laguna to symbolize the marriage with the sea.  Historically the Sensa is the result of an overlap in time of rites  and civil and religious events, today they prefer to give the  meaning of celebration of the Sea and then feast of the city that  draws from its relationship with the sea, reason for living.

To know more about Local Festivities in Venice click here

25th April – 1st May 2008
Campo St. Maurizio

The name Bochaleri dates back to 1300, when the workers of Venetian ceramic, a refined production appreciated all over Europe, organized in a corporation known as the Scutelarii first and then in Bochaleri. This ancient art, suppressed by a Napoleon decree in 1806, has survived history and oblivion thanks to the efforts of artisans who through the years have conserved and handed down jealously the secrets of the production of tankards and their fine decorations. This year too, close to the Festa of the Sensa, the ‘I Bochaleri’ association is organizing a true fair in Campo San Maurizio from April 25th to May 1st. Visitors can watch all the phases of production and decoration of the ceramic, and children, in particular, may create little objects in clay under the supervision of the expert ‘bochaleri’.