31/07/2003 - Spectacular line up for 60th Mostra with Bertolucci, the Coens, Greenaway, Allen & Kitano. No show from Wong Kar Wai, Bergman & Altman. Lots of Europe + 3 Italians in competition

Programme

“Round numbers are lucky” so the 60th edition of the Venice Film Festival (27 Aug-6 Sept) will have it in spades. For the number crunchers amongst you, we’d like to point out that it was no easy thing to sift through the 1,591 submissions (shorts, medium, and feature-length, plus documentaries), 255 of which Italian.
As he demonstrated last year, Moritz De Hadeln is not a man who gets discouraged easily. After pulling off an authentic miracle in 2002, this year’s landmark edition promises to be spectacular.

Not a single one of the numerous rumours in circulation since May did full justice to the programme that De Hadeln and his team put together for Venice 60. Rarely has European film production been so well represented: Italy has three films in competition (Marco Bellocchio with Buongiorno notte, Paolo Benvenuti with Segreti di Stato and Edoardo Winspeare with Il Miracolo). The French contingent includes Jacques Doillon with Raija and Bruno Dumont with 29 Palms; Germany is sending Margarethe von Trotta with Rosenstrasse and Portugal’s 95-year-old veteran master filmmaker Manoel De Oliveira will be making his fifth appearance on the Lido with Un film falado. The Asians include Takeshi Kitano and his story of an aging Samurai warrior in Zatoichi and Malaysia’s Tsai Ming Liang with Goodbye Dragon Inn. Then there’s South America and Mexico with Alejandro Gonzàles Iñarritu and 21 Grams.

Hollywood is traditionally wary of the Venetian competition, so they will crowd the out of competion screenings alongside prestigious Europeans like Bernardo Bertolucci (The Dreamers) and François Dupeyron whose Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran will allow the Mostra to honour the star of this film, Egypt’s Omar Sharif.
Woody Allen will open the festival and the brothers Coen will present their Intolerable Cruelty. Jim Jarmusch is bringing Coffee and Cigarettes and its stellar cast that includes Roberto Benigni, Steve Buscemi, Tom Waits and Iggy Pop. Another eagerly awaited title is Stephen Norrington’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen starring Sean Connery and based on the characters created by the genius that goes by the name of Alan Moore.
“Controcorrente” (Upstream) is just as promising. In fact, De Hadeln said it was on a par with the competition in terms of participating films. The list includes Ciprì & Maresco with the controversial Ritorno di Cagliostro, Sofia Coppola with Lost in Translation and Iran’s Babak Payami with Silence Between Two Thoughts.
De Hadeln was also keen to contradict the great Peter Greenaway who, aside from presenting the third episode of his Tulse Luper Suitcases at the Mostra, was planning to hold a conference about the death of cinema. “Cinema is better than ever!” said De Hadeln.

VENEZIA 60 In concorso
Marco BELLOCCHIO Buongiorno, notte
Paolo BENVENUTI Segreti di Stato
Randa CHAHAL SABBAG Le cerf-volant
Jacques DOILLON Raja
Bruno DUMONT Twentynine Palms
Amos GITAI Alila
Alejandro GONZÁLES IÑÁRRITU 21 Grams
Christopher HAMPTON Imagining Argentina
IM Sangsoo Baram-Nan Gajok (A Good Lawyer’s Wife)
Srdjan KARANOVIC Sjaj u Ocima(Loving Glances)
Takeshi KITANO Zatoichi
Jan Jakob KOLSKI Pornografia
Carol LAI MIU SUET Floating Landscape
Noémie LVOVSKY Les sentiments
Manoel de OLIVEIRA Un filme falado(A Talking Picture)
Margarethe von TROTTA Rosenstrasse
TSAI Ming-Liang Ru San (Goodbye Dragon Inn)
Edoardo WINSPEARE Il Miracolo
Michael WINTERBOTTOM Code 46
Andrey ZVYAGINTSEV Vosvrašcenie (The Return)

CONTROCORRENTE (Concorso)
Khyentse NORBU Travellers and Magicians
Laila PAKALNINA Pitons (The Python)
Babak PAYAMI Silence Between Two Thoughts
Pen-ek RATANARUANG Last Life in the Universe
Daniel ROSENFELD La quimera de los heroes
Raoul RUIZ Une place parmi les vivants
Hiner SALEEM Vodka Lemon
John SAYLES Casa de los Babys
Michael SCHORR Schultze Gets the Blues
Gianluca Maria TAVARELLI Liberi
Dervis ZAIM Çamur (Fango)

Evento speciale
Peter GREENAWAY The Tulse Luper Suitecases. Episode 3: Antwerp

FUORI CONCORSO
Woody ALLEN Anything Else
Robert BENTON The Human Stain
Bernardo BERTOLUCCI The Dreamers
Joel e Ethan COEN Intolerable Cruelty (Work in progress)
François DUPEYRON Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran (Monsieur Ibrahim e i fiori del Corano)
James IVORY Le Divorce
Jim JARMUSH Coffee and Cigarettes
Stephen NORRINGTON The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Robert RODRIGUEZ Once Upon a Time in Mexico
Ridley SCOTT Matchstick Men

(Translated from Italian)