Raavanan enthralls Venice

Festival Director Marco Muller, Vikram Keneddy, Mani Ratnam, Suhasini Mani Ratnam and Venice Biennale President Paolo Baratta

The Italians loved it! Yes, it was amidst loud cheers and a standing ovation that director Mani Ratnam, his wife Suhasini Mani Ratnam and actor Vikram Kennedy graciously took centre stage after the screening of the Tamil version, Raavanan at the 67th Venice Film Festival.

The film may not have been well-received back home, but the global film fraternity lauded Mani with the Jaeger-LeCoultre Glory to the Filmmaker Award. The list of the earlier recipients of the award is illustrious — Sylvester Stallone, Abbas Kiarostami and Takeshi Kitano. Mani is the first Indian to receive this honour. He was presented with a specially engraved Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso timepiece bearing the Mostra’s commemorative seal.

Mani along with Suhasini and Vikram attended a press conference where the curious Italian media peppered Mani with questions ranging from his earlier works to his latest one and also Slumdog Millionaire. Mani had all the answers and also did not shy away from admitting that the Bollywood version of Raavan did go wrong. The trio was ecstatic to be in the scenic city, which has served as a backdrop for many a romantic number in Bollywood. This wasn’t Mani’s first visit to Venice as he had been here earlier when Yuva was chosen to be screened at the Venice Film Festival in 2004.

by timesofindia.com

Italian Politician Slams Tarantino’s Venice Stint

ROME (Hollywood Reporter) – Italy’s Minister of Culture said he wants to pick the president of the jury for the next Venice Film Festival, arguing that the state’s support gives him that right and charging that festival artistic director Marco Mueller’s choice of auteur Quentin Tarantino as president of the last jury was “elitist.”

In an interview published in Friday’s edition of the Italian newsweekly Panorama, Minister Sandro Bondi blasted the decision of the jury to award the festival’s top prize to Sophia Coppola’s “Somewhere.” Since the festival concluded September 11, the Italian media has charged that the choice showed favoritism toward American writer-director Coppola, Tarantino’s former girlfriend.

Tarantino also was criticized for the jury’s decision to present Tarantino’s mentor, the respected independent filmmaker Monte Hellman, with a career award, and for giving two major awards to Spanish filmmaker Alex de la Iglesia, a longtime friend of the 47-year-old Tarantino.

After the festival, Tarantino aggressively denied “steering” the jury, which included fellow directors Arnaud Desplechin of France, Guillermo Arriaga of Mexico, and Italians Gabriele Salvatores and Luca Guadagnino, plus Lithuanian actress Ingeborga Dapkunaite and composer Danny Elfman.

“Tarantino is the expression of an elitist, relativistic and snobbish culture,” Bondi said in the interview. “It’s clear that his vision influences his critical judgment. The results of this year’s festival should oblige everyone to open their eyes and do a little bit of soul searching.”

Bondi also criticized Mueller, who has been Venice’s artistic director since 2004.

“Mueller is like a soccer coach, in love with his own schemes up to the point that he is unable to focus on the talent that is visible to everyone else,” the magazine quoted Bondi as saying.

CHANGING RELATIONSHIP

Bondi has actively reshaped the relationship between the Italian state and the cinema sector since he took office in 2006. In the past, he has refused to provide state funding for projects deemed critical of the government or those seen to have limited artistic value, and he has refused to attend major festivals including Cannes, Locarno and Venice in protest of the decision of those events to screen films he said were inappropriate.

In the Panorama interview, Bondi said that because the Italian government directly or indirectly provides more than half of the Venice Film Festival’s 12.1 million euro ($15.7 million) budget, that it should have the right to decide who oversees the festival’s main competition jury.

Most of the reaction to Bondi’s claim that the Italian government should pick the jury president has been negative.

“Bondi was motivated by the fact that he wanted an Italian film to win, the goal of a lot of people,” said producer Domenico Procacci, whose film “Barney’s Vision” was in competition in Venice this year. “But there is no country in the world where politics plays the role of protecting and defending the national film industry.”

Jury member Guadagnino agreed: “The first thing that comes to mind is a profound confusion about the state’s financing an event like the Venice Film Festival,” he said. “Does that support mean that the event should only exist to entertain the leaders of the government?”

If Bondi was indeed given a voice in selecting the main competition jury, it would make Venice the first major film festival in which the state plays such an active role in selecting a jury. Several leading industry figures said such a move would severely damage Venice’s credibility.

“These ideas are not in line with the practice in countries that host large festivals, in which the autonomy of the event is guaranteed,” said Ricardo Tozzi, president of the Italian audiovisual association ANICA. “The composition of the jury is a technical job … it could never be carried out by someone who lacks that specific expertise.”

A spokesman for the Venice festival, the world’s oldest film festival, said officials had no comment regarding Bondi’s remarks.

da ABCnews.go.com

Venice Film Festival: Sofia Coppola’s ‘Somewhere’ Among Winners
Director Sofia Coppola poses after receiving the Golden Lion for the best film for “Somewhere” at the Venice Film Festival.
Sofia Coppola’s “Somewhere” won the Golden Lion for best film at the Venice Film Festival.

“Somewhere” tells the story of a Hollywood star (Stephen Dorff) who struggles to bond with his young daughter (played by Elle Fanning).

Alex de la Iglesia won the Silver Lion award for best director for his Spanish civil war drama “Balada Triste de Trompeta” (A Sad Trumpet Ballad).

Vincent Gallo, star of “Essential Killing,” won the award for best actor. In the film he plays an American member of the Taliban captured in Afghanistan. Ariane Labed, star of “Attenberg” was honored as best actress.

Here’s a list of the winners at the festival, which ended today:

Golden Lion for best film: “Somewhere”

Silver Lion for best director: Alex de la Iglesia,  “Balada Triste de Trompeta.”

Special Jury Prize: “Essential Killing,” directed by Jerzy Skolimowski.

Best actor: Vincent Gallo, “Essential Killing.”

Best actress: Ariane Labed,  “Attenberg.”

Marcello Mastroianni Award for best young actor or actress: Mila Kunis, “Black Swan.”

Best screenplay: Alex de la Iglesia,  “Balada Triste de Trompeta.”

Special Lion for overall work: Monte Hellman

By Dean Napolitano blog.wsj.com

Barney’s Version on Venice red carpet

CBC News
From left, actor Paul Giamatti, director Richard J. Lewis and actress Rosamund Pike attend the Barney’s Version photocall during the 67th Venice Film Festival at the Palazzo del Casino on Friday in Venice, Italy. (Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)
Producer John Landis hailed late Canadian writer Mordecai Richler’s satirical voice Friday, as the film version of Barney’s Version premiered in Venice.

Barney’s Version is one of Montreal-based writer Richler’s most beloved books and the character Barney, played by Paul Giamatti in the film, is a comic masterpiece, Landis said.

Landis, who was friends with Richler, said he was never really accepted because was unabashedly politically incorrect.

“He was the enfant terrible of the Jewish community in Canada because he made fun of them,” Landis told reporters at the Venice International Film Festival.

Paul Giamatti and Rachelle Lefevre star in the screen version of Mordecai Richler’s comic novel Barney’s Version. (Sabrina Lantos/eOne Films)
“He perfected the art of satirical wit, but he is making fun of them with a soft glove.”

Richler had begun work on a script based on his 400-page novel when he died in 2001. It took Landis another 10 years — and four screenwriters — to bring the book to the screen, he said.

Director Richard J. Lewis, best known for the feature film Whale Music, said the sprawling novel has been “crystallized into a love story” for film.

“The book was quite beautifully written, very literary, but not particularly cinematic,” he said at the Venice press conference. “This is the story of an anti-hero, a man full of flaws and warts who’s his own worst enemy.”

Giamatti said he followed the script and tried not to get in the way of the essential Barney Panofsky as created by Richler.

“His drive, his obsession, makes him sweet and also makes him a bastard and a pain in the ass,” Giamatti said.

Giamatti as Barney, Dustin Hoffman as his father and Rosamund Pike as Barney’s third wife and the woman who knocks off some of his rough edges are all getting acclaim from international critics.

“Not since Richard Dreyfuss so capably inhabited the title role in 1974′s The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz has a Richler … lead character been brought to life as effectively as Giamatti’s irascible, rumpled Barney Panofsky,” trade publication the Hollywood Reporter said in its early review.

‘Retains a core of human decency’

Variety praised both Giamatti and Hoffman. “Hoffman is charming as the elder Panofsky, a boisterous presence who embarrasses himself at every social occasion but retains a core of human decency,” it said in its review.

Pike said the challenge of the role was that it spanned such a long time period.

“I might have women of three generations recognize me,” she said. “I could use my imagination to a degree, but I needed to ask advice and help from women who have been through it to give my role some authenticity…I wish I had so much dignity in my own life.”

The Venice festival wraps up Saturday.

Barney’s Version screens Sunday at the Toronto International Film Festival and will also be shown later at festivals in Vancouver and Halifax.

by cbc.ca