The 78th Venice Film Festival Opens Tonight In Search For A New Masterpiece

The start of golden autumn brings the glory of shining Golden Lions with it. Today the whole cinema fiesta moves to Venice where the 78th Venice International Film Festival will open to the cinema professionals and to the general public. It will take place till the 11th of September when we all will find out about a new winner of the Golden Lion and perhaps a possible candidate to the main Oscar next year, as it has become a tradition for the past several years.

21 movies will take place in the most prestigious section of Venezia 78 Competition. Bong Joon Ho, Academy Award-winning director and screenwriter from South Korea, and one of the most original voices in contemporary film, will chair the International Juries for Competition. Tonight the first film from the Competition to be shown on the big screen is the director Pedro Almodóvar's Madres Paralelas, which talks about identity and maternal passion through three very different mothers.

In the section of Orizzonti 19 films will compete for the Lion. The screenings of Orizzonti begins with the French director Thomas Kruithof's Les Promesses featuring Isabelle Huppert who plays the fearless mayor of a town near Paris who is completing the final term of her political career. But when she is approached to become a Minister, her ambition arises.

Of course, the programme will be offering the high-value production of Out of Competition section as well as Biennale College Cinema and Special Screenings.

Tonight during the opening ceremony of the festival The Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement of the 78th Venice International Film Festival will be awarded to the director, actor, and screenwriter Roberto Benigni. On September 8, an iconic American actress Jamie Lee Curtis will also receive the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement.

Last year Chloé Zhao's Nomadland won the Golden Lion and consecutively three Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress in a Leading Role.

Source: https://www.labiennale.org/en/cinema/2021