Art Films, Films by Artists at Venice International Film Festival
The 74th Venice International Film Festival, organized through the Venice Biennale, opened on 30 August and runs through 9 September 2017.
As in years past a highlight of the festival is films created especially for the city’s already-dramatic locales. One such is director Loris Gréaud’s Sculpt (2016) which will be screened 6-9 September at the Teatrino di Palazzo Grassi adjacent to the property of the well-known contemporary art museum. Sculpt stars cult favorites Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Rampling and features an original soundtrack created by the legendary and mysterious Residents.
Probably the best-known and most successful of these site-specific films was one that had to do with the artwork originally housed there: Peter Greenaway’s The Wedding at Cana, a cinematic treatment of Paolo Veronese’s 1562 landmark painting at the Benedictine refectory on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore.
The film festival also features movies by artists known best from other mediums, including Ai Weiwei, Shirin Neshat, and Laurie Anderson.
Reference: Naomi Rea. “Artists Ai Weiwei, Shirin Neshat, and Laurie Anderson to Premiere Their Films at Venice Film Festival This Weekend.” ArtNet News, 30 August 2017.
Loris Gréaud, Sculpt, 2016.
Peter Greenaway, The Wedding at Cana (film still and link to video), 2009.
Further Reading: R.J.B. Bosworth. Italian Venice: A History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014.
Aida Vallejo and Paz Peirano. Film Festivals and Anthropology. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017.
Posted by Jean Marie Carey