The 77th version of the competition is among the first main cultural occasions to happen in Europe for the reason that coronavirus pandemic took maintain on the continent, with the Cannes Film Festival canceling its 2021 occasion in Could.
A wide range of face masks have been on show on this 12 months’s red carpet. Credit score: Tiziana Fabi/AFP/Getty Photographs
These security measures embody obligatory face masks, temperature checks, bodily distancing throughout screenings and a wall constructed across the red carpet to maintain the general public away.
Tilda Swinton arrives for the competition’s opening ceremony and first screening holding a customized sea creature-inspired masks by artist James Merry. Credit score: Tiziana Fabi/AFP/Getty Photographs
Actor and jury president Cate Blanchett greeted competition director Alberto Barbera by touching elbows, with each carrying masks. Blanchett paired hers with an Esteban Cortazar cape gown she had beforehand worn to the “Carol” premiere on the 2015 London Film Festival.
Elsewhere, mannequin Taylor Hill hit the red carpet in an Etro crystal-embroidered floral chiffon robe, whereas Roberta Armani impressed in a vivid blue quantity from her uncle Giorgio’s namesake label.
The way forward for cinema
This 12 months’s Venice Film Festival opened with the premiere of “Lacci,” a romantic drama directed by Daniele Luchetti. The film, which is about in Naples and depicts a wedding on the brink, has been in comparison with Noah Baumbach’s 2019 hit “Marriage Story.” The competition may also see the premieres of films together with the Greta Thunberg biopic “Greta,” Pedro Almodóvar’s Swinton-led “The Human Voice,” the moody Frances McDormand street journey story “Nomadland,” and the interval love story “The World to Come,” starring Vanessa Kirby, Katherine Waterston and Casey Affleck.
A short historical past of the red carpet
On stage on the opening ceremony, competition director Barbera voiced his concern about the way forward for cinema, because the pandemic might give streaming companies an additional edge over theaters. “The sensation of watching a movie on the big display screen with different folks is within the very nature of the movie business,” he mentioned. “We’ve to help cinemas. Many are nonetheless closed immediately, others won’t ever open once more.”
Whereas accepting her Lifetime Achievement award, Swinton emphasised the tenacity of the movie business: “To come back to Venice, this 12 months of all years, to have a good time immortal cinema and her defiant survival within the face of all of the challenges that evolution may throw at her — as at us all — might be my honest pleasure.”
This 12 months’s Venice Film Festival is being held on the Venice Lido and runs from September 2-12, 2021.
Scroll by means of the gallery above to see the very best appears from Venice Film Festival’s red carpet. The gallery might be up to date all through the occasion.
