Cinema In Venice
68th VENICE FILM FESTIVAL: A PARADE OF STARS
Great news from the forthcoming edition of the Venice Film Festival! Darren Aronofsky (winner of the Venice Film Festival in 2008 with "The Wrestler", starring Mickey Rourke, and director of "The Black Swan", the film which opened last year's edition of the Venice Film Festival and deserved an Academy Award for Best Actress to Natalie Portman) will be the President of this year's Jury. Moreover, the multiple award-winning director Apichatpong Weerasethakul, winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2010 with "Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives", will be the President of the Orizzonti section, dedicated to new currents in international cinema, while famous Italian directors Carlo Mazzacurati and Roberta Torre will preside the "Luigi De Laurentis" Venice Award For A Debut Film and the Controcampo Italiano sections respectively.
Hollywood's top stars wouldn't obviously miss such an important event: and it will be George Clooney to open the 2011 edition of the Festival with his highly-anticipated political thriller "The Ides Of March". But that's not all: the forthcoming edition will also give two very special acknowledgments: Italian director Marco Bellocchio will receive the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement, while a living legend among Hollywood stars, American actor and director Al Pacino, will be given the Jaeger-Le Coultre Glory to the Filmmaker Award, a prize of the Film Festival created in collaboration with Jaeger-Le Coultre.
In the latter case, the award ceremony will precede the world premiere of Pacino’s third feature-length directorial picture, "Wilde Salome", an unconventional feature documentary referred to as his "most personal project ever".
Charming Venice
THE BORGES LABYRINTH
On June 14, 2011, the Borges Labyrinth has been officially inaugurated at the Giorgio Cini Foundation, the enchanting VA2011 Congress Venue on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore.
The permanent installation intends to mark the 25th anniversary of the death (14 June 1986 - 14 June 2011) of the celebrated writer Jorge Luis Borges, and consists in the reconstruction of a maze that the British architect Randoll Coate designed in the writer’s honour, originally donated to the Fundación Internacional Jorge Luis Borges - and Borges himslef would undoubtedly have been happy of this Venetian version, since he was famously in love with the town on the Lagoon.
The labyrinth will be constructed in the area to the rear of the Palladian Cloister and the Cypress Cloister, so as to form a sort of “third cloister”. The project aims to to create a unique garden, rich in spiritual meanings - in memory of the great Argentinean author, thus generating further public interest in his world.
Moreover, the labyrinth will also be the backdrop for a long-term program of varied cultural events (several research projects, lectures, master classes, workshops, art shows, productions and performances of plays, videos, choreographies and concerts). These educational and artistic events will be inspired by Borges’ work and by the historical and cultural implications contained in his imaginary world, such as the relationship between narrative and figurative arts, as well as that between narrative and natural sciences.
