Francesca Comencini in Venice, flanked by actors Fabrizio Gifuni and Romana Maggiora Vergano
The Italian filmmaker spoke with me on the eve of her film kicking off the 15th anniversary edition of the Cinecittà: Cinema Made In Italy showcase in London.
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Ava DuVernay photographed by ©Hadnnan in Marrakech, courtesy of FIFM
American filmmaker Ava DuVernay was at the Marrakech International Film Festival this year to share her wisdom during a public Conversation, where she talked about making movies as a Black woman but also the ability to watch cinema and how that changes depending on your socio-economic background.
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Just what makes a great actor? Some will say it’s about possessing a combination of beauty and talent, some will point to acting skills and the ability to embody different characters, while others yet will mention that elusive word, “charisma” which can transform a performance into a work of art.
Meet Ali Suliman.
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These days, there is much talk about Abel Ferrara and his collaboration with Saint Laurent. The American filmmaker’s latest is produced by the Maison and will world premiere Out of Competition at the 77th Venice Film Festival. There Ferrara will also receive the Jaeger-LeCoultre Glory to the Filmmaker 2020 prize, an award “dedicated to a personality who has made a particularly original contribution to innovation in contemporary cinema.”
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Guillermo Arriaga is currently on a book tour promoting ‘El Salvaje’ and follows the route of the book’s latest translations, which, among other locations, so far have taken him to my native Florence and will take him to Holland at the start of 2019. In fact, while in the Netherlands, he’ll participate in what promises to be an engrossing conversation during the International Film Festival Rotterdam, part of their #FeelIFFR series of events.
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Photo courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia
While I interview Argentinian filmmaker Lucrecia Martel in Venice I can’t help but feel incredibly vulnerable. For one, I started writing about cinema and attending film festivals after her previous film ‘The Headless Woman’ was presented at the Cannes Film Festival in 2008. And I never had a chance to watch either ‘The Holy Girl’ or ‘La Ciénaga’ before that. So I’m a Martel virgin going into her latest ‘Zama’.
But mostly, I feel unguarded, bare in the presence of this quietly powerful woman. She is a filmmaker, an artist, an undeniable trendsetter — Martel smokes a cigar during our interview and of course, there are those trademark cool glasses she wears — but she is first and foremost a formidable woman. I gush constantly and I’ll admit hearing myself on tape to transcribe our interview afterwards is painful.
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A still from 'Ryuichi Sakamoto CODA' by Stephen Nomura Schible
At this year's Berlinale, the iconically sophisticated Ryuichi Sakamoto serves double duty.
He is part of the official 2018 Competition Jury, and is the subject of Stephen Nomura Schible’s 'RYUICHI SAKAMOTO: async AT THE PARK AVENUE ARMORY', the companion piece, the B side if you will, to 'RYUICHI SAKAMOTO: CODA', a film which screened at the Venice Film Festival in 2017.
When I met Sakamoto in person, inside the Casinò in Venice, I was awe struck. His shiny, perfectly straight silver hair, those tortoise shell eyeglasses and the stylish black suit all made for an image that is so naturally fashionable, hard to forget. Yet Sakamoto is so much more profound than just how he looks, his meticulously styled, outward persona.
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COURTESY OF THE VENICE FILM FESTIVAL ASAC
For me, James Toback’s ‘The Private Life of a Modern Woman’ — which he shot in just nine days and is only 70 minutes long — is the perfect film. Because it not only combines the talent of actress Sienna Miller with the filmmaker’s wonderful visual sense, but it also offers a view into what it’s like to be a woman in today’s America, and even more specifically in NYC. Those smug stares and taunting looks men bestow upon us on a daily basis to undo us from within, and the subtle violence we face in everyday life, coming at us from all directions, no male reviewer has caught it in their writing. But we women, we know. We feel it and now Toback filmed it, for all to see. If cinema is a way to decode the world around us, perhaps this is a step towards the genuine emancipation of the modern woman — because trust me, we still got a long long way to go to be truly free, to be exactly who we want to be. Even in our good ol’ U.S. of A.
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PHOTO COURTESY OF THE VENICE FILM FESTIVAL/ASAC
On a recent sunny afternoon in Venice, I sat in the company of Jim Carrey in a corner of a shaded garden and found before me a human being who is both wise and charming, as well as a handsome fifty-something man who captured my imagination and filled my thoughts for days thereafter. Part spiritual guru, part Saint Francis — yes, there was a bee buzzing around him the entire time, the animal clearly enamored with his scent and the actor unaffected by the imminent danger — Carrey appeared like the romantic hero with a sense of humor I had come across so many years ago. In ‘Once Bitten’ what is probably one of his first and most forgettable films, when I was in my teens and he, well, super young too.
But a few days after our tranquil interview, when we talked to Carrey about his latest project ‘Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond’, a Vice production premiering at the Venice Film Festival, the actor pulled a red carpet prank at NY Fashion Week and all was hilariously-Jim-Carrey-right-with-the-world once more. I imagined Carrey giggling to himself after our talk, thinking “I got that journalist, I really got her good, now she thinks I’m a smooth, great looking mystic and will write the most beautiful piece about me.”
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Photo courtesy of the Venice International Film Festival
This coming March, Cruz will receive an honorary prize from France’s Academy of Arts and Techniques of Cinema during the 43nd Cesar Awards ceremony, the country's equivalent to the Oscars. And she deserves that and more, in my book. So here are three questions with a woman who represents the spirit of "duende" that je-ne-sais-quoi only genuine Spanish women possess.
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Photo courtesy of the Venice International Film Festival
There is something perfectly magnetic about Liev Schreiber. He's tall, strong and handsome, with clear as aquamarines blue eyes. But it goes beyond that. When he sat down in the chair next to mine in Venice, I gasped.
And now I can't wait to watch him... eh hum.... hear him play a dog in Wes Anderson's 'Isle of Dogs'.
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