Jornal da Mostra
Nº 426 > 29ª Mostra > 31/08/2006
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Leon Cakoff, de Veneza, para o ‘Jornal da Mostra’
Edição:
Renata de Almeida e Leon Cakoff
Edição:
Renata de Almeida e Leon Cakoff
FESTIVALS` WAR CONFRONTS VENICE AND ROME; THE AUDIENCE LOSES.
In Cannes, the parties organized by the Rome city hall had always a friendly environment. Not anymore. Shortly before the opening of the 63rd Venice Festival, its director, Marco Müller, started attacking the new Roma Film Fest, announced as Festa di Roma. The new Rome Fest is supposed to open on October 12th, a month after Venice closes. But facing the declared war, its organizers started talking about finding another date in the year’s calendar. And, as in all wars, the loser is always the people/audience, for the rule practiced by Italian and almost all megalomaniac European festivals is absurd. A film, its authors and the audience are always harmed, because if a film is shown before in a competing city, it is systematically boycotted by other festivals. Too much war!Müller would have said, according to all Italian newspapers from August 29th, that the “Rome Film Fest will show the films discarded by Venice Festival... This will end up the weeping of the ones not selected by Venice”. With the repercussion of the statement, given to the Tg3, Marco Müller would have repaired his saying to the paper: I didn’t mean discarted, it is an inappropriate synthesis; I said “films we did not want”. Rome’s response was immediate: “This is a great offense to all people involved in the making of a film”.
Even before Festa di Roma has showed its results, comparison seems to diminish what Venice is worth. Venice Festival is getting less attractive to the big American studios, that have already elected Berlin (in February) and Cannes (in May) to promote their season features. The main reason is the lack of infra-structure for the creation of a market to buy and sell films. Another reason, for long complained about by producers and media, are the prohibitive, abusive prices in Venice, in hotels and restaurants, that might charge 300 euros or more for a meal and still wait poorly on the clients.
Rome’s mayor, Walter Veltroni, is personally involved in the organization of its film fest. He announces the festival with a millionaire budget of 12 million euros, twice what Venice declared to have for its festival. Rome also expects to seduce international market and attract film distributors by offering to their agents worldwide great convenience and comfort. Rome wants to reconquer the commercial market that was once Italian, at the time Milan organized the deceased Mifed. And Milan has lost its film market to Los Angeles, the American Film Market, exactly for its excessive greed, with exorbitant, absurd prices, just as the ones complained about by the partakers in Venice Festival (taking place at the Lido, a 40-minute boat ride from the overcrowded Venice).
Walter Veltroni announces his 12-million euro budget as generated exclusively by private capital and says he had to even decline sponsorship offers. Festa di Roma’s main sponsor is the Italian bank BNL, which used to support Venice Festival once. Another part of the sponsorship will be covered by the Camera di Commercio. To the best films, Rome will offer also rich sums in money. For that purpose, it announces filmmaker Ettore Scola as the president of the jury, supported by a team of filmgoers.
Translation into English: Laura Rebessi (laurarebessi@gmail.com)
