2020 Venice Film Festival

Quo Vadis, Aida? tackles one of the most harrowing war crimes in history, the 1995 massacre of Srebenica, a Bosnian town where 8372 innocent civilians were murdered by the Bosnian Serb army under the command of General Ratko Mladic. Even then and long before his war crimes trial in The Hague, he was considered a war criminal.

Not surprisingly, Nomadland won the Golden Lion, the top prize of the 77th Venice Film Festival. If its premiere reception in a half-filled Sala Grande (due to the Corona rules) could be called ecstatic excitement with rip-roaring applause, this was it.

Vanessa Kirby has a one-two-punch in Venice. She is the only actress who, in a toned-down year, has two films here.

Tilda Swinton did not just come to the Lido to collect an award – the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement no less – and wear a great mask, she also starred in and introduced The Human Voice, a short film by Pedro Almodóvar, a man she has admired greatly for many years. Wearing a yellow Haider Ackerman blazer and her newly red hair, she paid tribute to the Spanish master:  “My relationship with Pedro Almodóvar’s cinema started with the cinema of William Wyler and George Cukor, Billy Wilder, and then Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown was the first time I saw his spirit and I’ve been entirely besotted by his cinema ever since.

He is a young Swedish writer, cinematographer, and documentarian who had a few projects in the pipeline when he heard about a 15-year old schoolgirl who was staging a lone protest in Stockholm. Intrigued, he took his gear and his cameraman and went down to see what it was all about.

It is indeed a strange year when one of the biggest movies at the Venice Festival is a little British comedy with a title that misleads some theatergoers into expecting a typical period piece. The Duke is neither typical nor a costume drama.

During this time of the coronavirus pandemic and death, it seems frivolous to focus on fashion. However, because of the dire world state, it is good to find something beautiful, creative, and artistic to remind us that despite the dire months, optimism and a new normal may rise again.

The highly-anticipated documentary about climate activist Greta Thunberg premiered to what would be deafening applause in a year of social closeness not distancing. Still, the atmosphere in the half-empty theater was filled with cheers and appreciation and rightfully so.

No screaming fans line the red carpet. No one has camped out for days to get a glimpse of a superstar.

“A shop window for the best cinema production in the world”, festival director Alberto Barbera said today as he announced the line-up for the upcoming 77th Mostra Internazionale del Cinema in Venice, the very first major film festival taking place what for many is still the midst of a pandemic. And maybe the analogy is not that far off: in the new age of virtual screenings, Zoom, and other technologies now widely used, at least the Americans will have to go window-shopping for festival films unless they are willing to quarantine themselves for 14 days prior to their attendance.