Festival

The annual film festival in Venice is, of course, an ideal place to make a film (how come no-one has thought of it before). Everything is there in Pupi Avati's Festival: the famous hotels Des Bain and Excelsior on the Lido, the shimmering sandy beach which captivated Visconti. The film was made last spring and exploits the presence of passing film stars such as Jack Nicholson. We see the hysterical press conferences, where journalists and experts ask intelligent questions-without listening to the answers. Here's the president of the Biennial, Gian Luigi Rondi, lumbering around the corridors together with a smiling festivaI director such as Gillo Pontecorvo. Though Festival is not a documentary, it is a story about an actor on the decline who is trying to make a come-back after a series of legal intermezzos. He is played by Massimi Boldi, one of Italy's great comedians, who in this straight role can for the first time show the breadth of his talent. Because Festival is quite a tragicomically story with a bitter end, as so often with Avati. Avati has himself competed many times at Venice. He knows all about things which neither the public nor the press catch a glimpse of: about the enormous expectations, the intrigues and how friendships corrupt jury members, about the anxiety and loneliness felt by actors in their hotel rooms which can only be subdued by whisky in a tooth-brush glass, about laughter and applause at the wrong time from an unconcentrated premiere audience, about silence from the critics, about the sudden disappearance of friends after a screening. Festival is definitely based on reality. The story about the forgotten actor Franco Melis, who finds the limelight again at Venice, alludes to Walter Chiari - one of the most important names in Italian films of the 50s and 60s, and a central figure in the good life, not least for his marriage to Ava Gardner. He last competed at Venice in 1986 with Romance by Massimo Mazzucco. He was robbed of a prize as Best actor by Carlo Delle Piane in the film Regalo di Natale. (The Christmas Present). The director was Pupi Avati!The question Avati poses is as old as the hills: Can you compete in film? Now Avati seems to prefer to not compete with his films-as here in Stockholm. Who is going to make a comedy or a thriller at the Stockholm International Film Festival? Pupi Avanti has shown us the way and the idea has now been launched. PE L

Premiärstatus
Skandinavisk premiär: Medverkande
Massimo Boldi, Isabelle Pasco, Gianni Cavina: Producent
Antonio Avati & Aurelio de Laurentiis: Manus
Pupi Avati, in association with Antonio Avati, Giorgio Gosetti, Doriano Fasoli, Nino Marino: Foto
Chicca Ungaro: Musik
Pino Donaggio: Talat språk
Italian