According to Deadline Hollywood, which claims to have received confirmation directly from the festival, this year in Venice the usual press conference with the Jury that awards the Golden Lion and the other major prizes will not take place. The outlet initially suggested that the decision was driven by the trend of recent festival press conferences, where political topics (notably the Gaza crisis) have been the subject of press questions, to such an extent that some directors reportedly found themselves unprepared (as last year in Venice with Alexander Payne) or, as in Berlin, where Wim Wenders stated that cinema should not concern itself with politics, triggering a wave of controversy, discussed also during the meeting with the Jury at Cannes. The Venice Film Festival, according to Deadline, explained the cancellation of the press conference with the jurors as a scheduling conflict issue, without providing further clarification. What a pity, because this year’s Jury is one of the most interesting in recent years and surely we would not have minded hearing these figures express their opinions.
The Venice Jury 83
Let us note that the Jury of Venice 83, chaired by American actress, director and screenwriter Maggie Gyllenhaal, also includes among its members two of the most intriguing directors to have emerged in recent years, the Franco-Tunisian Kaouther Ben Hania, author of the award-winning and shocking The Voice of Hind Rajab, and the Afghan Shahrbanoo Sadat, whose notable No Good Men has arrived in our cinemas this year. There are also the English composer and artist Daniel Blumberg (The Brutalist), the Italian semiologist and critic Francesco Casetti, the French director and screenwriter Xavier Giannoli, and the Hong Kong director and producer Johnnie To. If what Deadline reports is true, this year the press will not have the opportunity to meet them, and, whatever the reason, it is a real pity.
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