A little preview from the 81st film festival for scenographers

Intimate stories shot indoors, stories of migrant architects who changed America, landscapes that blend between the Via Emilia and the West (to quote Guccini) and a France that is as light as it is romantically profound.

These are the suggestions from the 81st Venice Film Festival. There are many more, of course, but this preview is intended to be a small taste tailored for those who are passionate about scenography, photography and cinematic narrative techniques, those that transform Bologna into a place in the American Midwest and that make a New England oasis the territory of family misunderstandings. Pedro Almodovar, Brady Corbet, Pupi Avati and Claude Lelouche are the directors. Enjoy (pre)viewing.

The room next door

Pedro Almodovar's first film in English, shot in New York features a stellar cast: Julianne Moore, Tilda Swinton and John Turturro.

The film tells the story of three women, a mother and daughter united by a conflict between them that has never healed and separated by a great misunderstanding and Ingrid, the mother's friend, the custodian of the pain and bitterness that they both feel for this distance. It talks about writing (the mother and the friend are respectively a war journalist and a writer) of affection, love, friendship in sharing a house in a nature reserve in New England. And Almodovar's style meets the USA in a setting that is worth watching (and studying).

THE ROOM NEXT DOOR – Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton (Credits El Deseo, photo by Iglesias Más)
The room next door - Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton - Credits El Deseo, ph. Iglesias Más

The Brutalist

Directed by Brady Corbet, who wrote the film with his partner Mona Fastvold, the story of László Toth, a European architect who moves to the United States in the immediate post-war period with his wife Erszebet, is set. But their lives are changed forever by a mysterious and wealthy client, the charming industrialist Harrison Van Buren, who offers them the American dream.

He commissions the architect to design a modernist monument, helping to shape the landscape of the country he now calls home. It will be the most ambitious project of his career, which will see monumental heights and devastating lows.

The America built by migrants, the modernist dream and the love between the two protagonists who must defend themselves from a ferocious character are entrusted to Adrien Brody, Guy Pearce, Felicity Jones.

THE BRUTALIST – Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones
The brutalist - Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones

The American Garden

Rural America like Emilia Romagna. This is the narrative choice of Pupi Avati for this gothic filmed between Bologna and the Mid West. The story is that of a young problematic aspiring writer from Bologna who, at the time of the Liberation, falls in love with a beautiful nurse in the American army.

The following year, in the Midwest, he will go to live next to his beloved and the only thing separating them will be a vegetable garden. But she is not there, in her place he finds his mother, desperate for the disappearance of her daughter who has not given any news of herself since the end of the conflict.

For the boy it will be the beginning of a very tense search that will bring him back to Italy where he will experience a surprise ending. The scenographic detail and the perspective games, together with a clever use of the landscape make it an architecturally unmissable film, with Filippo Scotti, Roberto De Francesco, Armando De Ceccon, Chiara Caselli, Rita Tushingham.

L’ORTO AMERICANO – Filippo Scotti and Rita Tushingham (Credits Elen Rizzoni)
L'orto americano - Filippo Scotti and Rita Tushingham - Credits Elen Rizzoni

Finally

A film by Claude Lelouche, who returns to Venice in style: on September 2nd he will receive the Cartier Glory to the Filmmaker award, for having left a particularly original mark on contemporary cinema.

And as Cyrille Vigneron, CEO and president of Cartier SA, writes, «Lelouch's characters are incredibly human, his life stories remain etched in our minds, especially his unshakeable obsession with beautiful love stories. How would Love, without Claude Lelouch, express its unstoppable force?»

The awards ceremony will be followed by the screening of the film out of competition that tells the story of a lawyer who decides to embark on a road trip through France after losing the ability to lie.

The conclusion seems to be this: everything that happens to us is for our own good.

Romance and musical fantasy in a soundtrack composed by Ibrahim Maalouf accompany the audience in these extraordinary human stories, interpreted by an excellent cast: Kad Merad, Elsa Zylberstain, Michel Boujenah, Sandrine Bonnaire.

#Features #Latest 2024
fb messenger tel

See
also

Is it possible to shape sound in space?
#FEATURES

Is it possible to shape sound in space?

Sanlorenzo: anticipating the future
#FEATURES

Sanlorenzo: anticipating the future

Young Design Is Not Afraid of Artificial Intelligence
#FEATURES

Young Design Is Not Afraid of Artificial Intelligence

From London to Las Vegas: FusinaLab for the big luxury brands
#DESIGN

From London to Las Vegas: FusinaLab for the big luxury brands