VENICE – Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar has joined a chorus of voices at the Venice Film Festival calling for the reopening of cinemas and a return to film normality after coronavirus blockages, stating that films are meant to be noticed on the big screen, at home.
The directors and actors were very happy to return to the red carpet of the Lido and the theater screenings, albeit in a different way, after the pandemic closed the cinemas and put on suspense the film stages around the world.
“Even getting a position for today was surreal and there was a sense of normalcy,” French actress Stacy Martin said in presenting the film at the “Lovers” festival through director Nicole Garcia.
Venice organizers pride themselves on advancing the festival in user despite the strong and costly antivirus restrictions that come with protective mask all projections, theaters with a capacity of part or a third and rigorous temperature and disinfection controls.the first main film festival of the COVID era, convinced that they had to chart the way for a film industry badly affected by closures.
Almodóvar, who on Thursday created his short film “The Human Voice,” said streaming platforms had played a “vital role” in entertaining others during months of confinement at home.
But he said they had also contributed to the “dangerous” phenomenon of other people adapting to a more comfortable life, running and dining in the house, a kind of “incarceration” to which he said it was obligatory to resist.
“And the antidote is cinema,” he said, describing going out, sitting next to strangers in a movie theater where “you cry or rejoice with other people yourself.”
“If I put my movie on a platform like Netflix, then I lose that touch and that meeting point with the viewer,” he said.”Then you have to tell other people to go to the movies, move on to the movies, because some things will only be discovered on the big screen, in the dark with other people you don’t know.
That said, it’ll be the same.
Daniele Luchetti’s family circle drama, “Ties,” won sustained applause at the festival’s opening on Wednesday night.But the Italian director said thursday that something is wrong: the social estating regulations for the theater gave the audience the impression of being in a “vacuum bubble” and in the end the sound of applause dispersed.
“I know very well how audiences react to a movie, whether they like it and when they don’t,” Luchetti told The Associated Press after the film’s release.”This time the atmosphere is very unusual. Just the fact that there wasn’t anyone by your side: I couldn’t turn around and see a crowd of other people laughing or looking closely.”
He said he heard the applause at the end, but said it was rare, as all the other seats were left empty.”It’s a circular of applause in an area with another balance,” he said.But he conceded, “I think I have to get used to it.”
Tilda Swinton, who stars in Almodóvar’s short film and won a Golden Lion Award for Career, did the same from the level of the Lido’s main theatre, saying she was disappointed to see the eyes and ears of the public (but not their mouths because they were all covered in masks).
“When I wonder how I can adequately express my gratitude for this honor, I miss the words,” he said.”But I think I can tell you anything about what it means to be here with you tonight: which means being in a room with living creatures on the big screen.Which means being about to see a movie in Venice.
“Pure joy, ” he said.
More: Cinemas in front of movie parks: what a movie park offers (or doesn’t offer)