Panel press comunicate
This year the Venice Film Festival will once again host two international panels moderated by Peter Cowie: “Eastern Western: The Impact of the Spaghetti Western in Asia and America” (3rd September) and “The Impact of the Mostra on the Circulation of Quality Films” (4th September).
The 64th Venice Film Festival, directed by Marco Müller and organised by the Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia, chaired by Davide Croff, will this year once again set aside two days during the Festival for two international panels dedicated to two important themes related to the film industry. The panels will be moderated by Peter Cowie, film critic and US film industry historian, author and founder of The International Film Guide. The first of the two meetings – both of which will be held in the Sala Conferenze Stampa at the Palazzo del Casinò – is scheduled for Monday 3rd September at 3 p.m., and will be dedicated to the influence of Spaghetti Westerns in Asia and America. The second panel, scheduled for Tuesday 4th September at 3 p.m., will be dedicated to the impact of the Mostra on the circulation of quality films.
“Eastern Western: The Impact of the Spaghetti Western in Asia and America”
Monday, 3rd September, Sala Conferenze Stampa(Palazzo del Casinò), 3.30 p.m.
Sadao Yamane (Kinema-Junpo), Richard Corliss (Time), Jim Hoberman (The Village Voice), Marco Giusti and Manlio Gomarasca (curators of the Spaghetti Western retrospective), will be participating and will discuss Spaghetti Westerns. Originally inspired by the films of Akira Kurosawa, this genre had a profound influence on many directors, from Martin Scorsese to Quentin Tarantino, and from John Woo to Johnnie To. Spaghetti Westerns are some of the films that have had the biggest effect on popular cinema on an international level in the past few decades. Forty years after the release of Sergio Leone’s A fistful of dollars (Per un pugno di dollari), the film that launched Client Eastwood on the silver screen, the basic elements of the genre are as topical as ever, and the Spaghetti Western still has a strong influence on many contemporary film directors.
“The Impact of the Mostra on the Circulation of Quality Films”
Tuesday, 4th September, Conferenze Stampa (Palazzo del Casinò), 3.30 p.m.
This meeting will see the participation of Mick LaSalle (San Francisco Chronicle), Michel Ciment (France Culture), Derek Malcom (London Evening Standard), Riccardo Tozzi (Cattleya), Christine Vachon (Killer Films), who will discuss the future of a film winning an official prize at the Venice Film Festival and the impact this award may have on the film’s circulation. Do these prizes truly help a film gain a broader distribution in Europe and on other continents? Do the prizes influence viewers in the choice of a film? Do festivals guarantee success for a film? In Ang Lee’s case, on receiving the Leone d’Oro for Brokeback Mountain in 2005, he mentioned the enormous impact in Asia of the Leone d’Oro won by Akira Kurosawa with Rashomon. Still Life by Jia Zhangke, winner of the Leone d’Oro at the 63rd Venice Film Festival, and distributed in 67 countries, and Golden Door by Emanuele Crialese, winner of the Leone d’Argento at the 63rd Venice Film Festival, and subsequently acquired for distribution in 16 countries in Europe, are also emblematic in this sense.
Peter Cowie (England). Cinema critic and historian, former International Publishing Director of the American cinema magazine, Variety, and the founder and editor of the International Film Guide in 1963, which is still today among the most authoritative and popular annual film catalogues. He has published more than twenty cinema books, including The Godfather Book, The Apocalypse Now Book, The Cinema of Orson Welles, Revolution! The Explosion of the World Cinema in the 60s, John Ford and the American West, and critical biographies of Ingmar Bergman and Francis Ford Coppola. From 1989 to 2000 he was Variety’s international editor. A lecturer at universities on four continents and at the University of Santa Barbara in California, he is a member of the European Film College. During cinema’s centenary year, he published World Cinema: Diary of the Day for the British Film Institute. His studies of Swedish cinema earned him the Royal Order of the Polar Star in 1989. He has written commentaries for the celebrated Criterion Collection DVD series, among others Det sjunde inseglet (The Seventh Seal, 1957), by Ingmar Bergman, Il Gattopardo (The Leopard, 1963), by Visconti, and Salvatore Giuliano (1962) by Francesco Rosi. In November 2006, Rizzoli published his study of Louise Brooks. In 2005 he was a jury member for the Luigi De Laurentiis award for best debut film at the 62nd Venice Film Festival.
Venice, 23 August 2007
