Speaking his mind on the consequences of the pandemic on cinema, legendary Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar did not exactly mince words during his press conference.

“Lockdown has shown us our homes are a place where we’re somehow imprisoned, because we can find the love of our life there, work there, have food delivered, and we don’t need to move from our homes to do all this. I find this very dangerous. Companies have found people can work from home and it’s cheaper. I would oppose this forced reclusion with something else, because I wouldn’t like to see this imprisonment continue in the future. The antidote is the cinema, which is the opposite of all this.”

Cinema is about “Going out and getting dressed, walking in the street, regaining the life that’s in the streets, and being part of a place that’s dark and shared with people we don’t know.”

The Venice Film Festival had a great responsibility this time round. The first world-class festival to be held in a fairly long while, it had to show that cinema as we know it, theatrical rituals and all, is still possible even under the current extreme circumstances.

“I think everyone feels this,” stated Hungarian director Kornel Mundruczo. “If I can talk for all filmmakers, I think we all hope that Venice happening means we are back on track. We just need it.” And indeed, it had to happen, even if many stars couldn’t join the show because of travel restrictions.

That the Venice Film Festival even took place in these extreme pandemic times, is an achievement in itself. But this is only one battle, and there is a bigger war to be won

Also hosting similar events in a variety of disciplines (theatre, architecture, dance etc), the famous Venetian cultural foundation “Biennale” has fared rather well, despite having to handle a huge bureaucratic machine, in making this 77th Mostra happen in compliance with the safety measures we’re now familiar with — temperature tests before entering the festival area, face masks at all times, social distancing etc.

Apart from Vittorio Sgarbi (art critic and member of Italian parliament) refusing to wear his mask and thus literally coming to blows with one of the theatre attendants, everything went over smoothly — while organisers kept their fingers crossed, of course, that there would be no outbreak of the virus in the festival’s long run. What is more, the safety apparatus turned out to be far less obtrusive and cumbersome than the anti-terrorism measures which, after 9/11, had heavily impacted, and almost rendered unlivable, festival spaces for the better part of the 2000s.

Thus: yes, “it can be done”, as Biennale president Roberto Cicutto succinctly put it. Granted, it is a bit awkward to sit in the dark and catch sight of attendants walking up and down to reprimand those who didn’t comply with wearing masks properly (or worse, kept the mask off). And the giant screen next to the Palazzo del cinema allowed people to observe casts and crews as they entered official screenings, while the actual red carpet was cordoned off by no less than a wall — a conspicuous reminder to bystanders of the mediation of screens bitterly replacing real interactions for most of this year.

However, it was all for a good cause; the Biennale did a remarkable job on the whole, and the informal social dimension, which traditionally plays such a big role in festival-going, was fortunately left unaffected. Everybody’s cooperation was essential, as reiterated in several official statements, including by actress Anna Foglietta during the opening ceremony she hosted — and indeed even young stars such as Maya Hawke (Ethan’s daughter) went as far as keeping the mask on even during one-to-one interviews.

It was a lively fest, an effervescent affair as usual, if distinctly less crowded: far fewer professionals and journalists were admitted, but paying audiences encouragingly kept populating the screenings in no small degree.

No doubt, all very “heartwarming”, as The Duke’s Jim Broadbent phrased it. Yet all these lofty feelings should not blind us to the bigger picture of the rationale behind the decision to restart the festival system with a fully in-person edition, discarding from the outset any form of online ersatz.

On September 2, the directors of six of the main festivals in Europe (Cannes, Venice, Locarno, Rotterdam, San Sebastian, Karlovy Vary) held a joint press conference, suggesting that the relentless chess game with the streaming services, who during the lockdown “acquired a fundamental importance” — as Venice’s Alberto Barbera is ready to recognise — is still far from being over.

It certainly isn’t for Cannes’ director Thierry Frémaux, whose past relationships with Netflix have been far from idyllic: “Platforms have been around for about five years,” he had announced. “We’ll see if, in 100 years, we are celebrating the 105th anniversary of the platforms… We have to stop announcing the death of cinemas when something new happens. When Avengers: Endgame became the highest-grossing movie in the world, no one claimed the death of the platforms.”

The flipside of Frémaux’s impetuosity is Barbera’s realism: cinema is in danger. “We risk having a reduction of the role of cinemas, which would be detrimental. The theatrical experience is in the very nature of the film industry, so we have to fight and support the sector.”

The recovery of the art world sadly seems to be on top of nobody’s agenda: why, wonders Donatella Finocchiaro (Macaluso Sisters’ female lead, in the main competition), are planes choc-a-bloc while theatres are kept closed? Chances are that it is something more than a chess game: it might be no less than a battle, “a battle for civilisation and for culture,” said Barbera.

The fact itself that Biennale Cinema is held is a sign that this battle is being fought; what is more, this battle will be fought by the major European festivals together, in mutual support: “We tried to understand together how we could face this unprecedented situation with large uncertainties, risks and dangers,” said Barbera. “We went even beyond in some cases and shared information on movies and projects… I really hope this collaborative spirit might continue in the future as well. If we share solutions, work to improve our job, which is at the service of the filmmakers and film sector, we will do this even better if we continue to think together and share decisions.”

Translation: even if you saved our life when we were confined to our couch, do not imagine that the market is all yours, and that you can afford to not take us into account — particularly now that we form a united front.

That Venice took advantage, against other festivals, of the privilege of being the first to restart, it certainly cannot be said. When this year’s edition got cancelled, Cannes made the embarrassingly poor (in terms of cultural politics) and self-humiliating decision to distribute “quality labels” to selected films as a replacement, thereby virtually self-demoting itself to the rank of an unspoken advertisement department of international sales agencies. And when the actual list of ‘labeled films’ came out, puzzled film aficionados rejoiced: ‘if this were Cannes, they reasoned, ‘Venice’s selection would surely be great this year’, since it would get all the good that Cannes had left out.

But no, that hasn’t really been the case in the end. The problem is, too many directors (eg. Paul Verhoeven and Nanni Moretti) preferred to wait at least one year for their already completed films to premiere in Cannes 2021, while many others didn’t quite see the point of having their works presented at a festival which would have hardly helped their commercial success anyway, since it’s not even sure if, how, when and where movie theatres are going to reopen.

As a result, the pool of films the selection committee could choose from was probably smaller than one could expect, and indeed the main competition turned out to be largely uninspiring. On the other hand, the sidebars showcased not only quite a few offbeat directors (e.g. Lav Diaz) in splendid form, but also a number of (quasi-)newcomers who deserved greater exposure (e.g., among several others, Li Dongmei, Yulene Olaizola, Shahram Mokri).

Consistently looking at Cannes as a model to aspire to, Barbera certainly identifies his role with that of a consummate politician, able to mediate between hundreds of different and even competing interests, as is required by business machines much greater than Venice’s, such as the monumental Côte d’Azur exhibition. He is right, and even in these difficult times he has proven to be very much up to this challenge.

And yet, greater attention to the curatorial aspects of the festival, with a greater investment in the quality of the main competition, committing to launching newer and worthier filmmakers as opposed to relegating them to the sidebars, and not playing safe with an unsurprising line-up, might have made this edition into a truly special one.

To use Barbera’s own “battle” metaphor, the first skirmishes have doubtlessly been won. Yet wars can only be won in the long run, and it all starts by curatorial choices, eliciting genuine interest in the films. The audiences will follow, even in times as peculiar as these: sooner or later theatres will be attended again. But without courage and a long-term plan, one cannot hope to win wars.

Marco Grosoli teaches film at Habib University, and has been covering most of the major European film festivals since 2003

Published in Dawn, ICON, September 27th, 2020