Venice Film Festival: Jury chief says films don’t change the world, but document it; Sorrentino’s presidential drama raises curtain

VENICE — US director Alexander Payne, president of the jury at this year’s Venice Film Festival, said on Wednesday that while movies rarely alter the course of society, they serve as vital documents of their times and shape memory.

“Can a film really change society or culture? I don’t know. Doubtful,” Mr. Payne said, recalling that films such as Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator did not stop World War II, but rather showed that people were aware of what was going on.

“We have those as documents and, as such, we can try to learn from them,” he said ahead of the formal opening of the 11-day festival later on Wednesday.

Mr. Payne, whose credits include the Oscar-winning comedies Sideways and The Holdovers, lamented the shrinking space for theatrical releases in the age of streaming, saying movies that were only seen online struggled to make a broad impact on society.

“It’s typically films which have theatrical release, which become a part of a cinema conversation, of a cultural conversation, and then have some kind of impact,” he said.

Big streamers such as Netflix and Amazon regularly showcase their films at Venice but then offer little or no exposure for those movies in cinemas, reserving them instead for their subscribers. In the run-up to the 2025 event, some 1,500 film industry figures signed a petition urging the festival to take a robust stand over the war in Gaza, calling on the organizers to promote Palestinian voices and denounce Israeli actions.

Mr. Payne declined to say if he supported their call, while the head of the festival, Alberto Barbera, said he welcomed open debate but rejected suggestions that Israeli filmmakers or actors should be banned.

“We reject outright the demand to disinvite artists who wish to take part in the festival. At the same time, we have never hesitated to express our enormous anguish at what is happening in Gaza,” he told reporters.

The Venice festival opened on Wednesday night with the world premiere of Italian director Paolo Sorrentino’s La Grazia. Twenty-one films are competing for the prestigious Golden Lion prize, including works by Guillermo del Toro, Kathryn Bigelow, and Yorgos Lanthimos.

The event ends on Sept. 6 when Mr. Payne and his fellow jury members announce who has won the top Golden Lion award.

LOOKING FOR GRACE Paolo Sorrentino’s La Grazia opened the 82nd Venice Film Festival on Wednesday, with the Oscar-winning director revealing that his latest movie was inspired by a real-life political dilemma that raised profound moral questions.

Starring Mr. Sorrentino’s longtime collaborator Toni Servillo and Anna Ferzetti, the film follows the final months in office of a fictional Italian president who must decide whether to approve a law allowing euthanasia and wheth-er to pardon two prisoners convicted of murder.

Mr. Sorrentino told reporters the story was prompted by President Sergio Mattarella’s 2019 decision to grant clemency, (“grazia” in Italian), to a man who killed his Alzheimer’s-afflicted wife.

“It immediately seemed like an interesting moral dilemma to tell,” Mr. Sorrentino said. “For years I’ve thought that moral dilemma was a formidable narrative engine, more than any other narrative tool usually used in cinema.”

Although the main character shares many traits with the highly popular Mr. Mattarella, Mr. Servillo said it was fusion.

“There are countless widowed presidents of the republic, several presidents of the republic who are men of law, several presidents of the republic with only one daughter,” Mr. Servillo said.

Mr. Sorrentino won the Oscar for best foreign language picture in 2014 for The Great Beauty and took the Silver Lion runners-up prize in Venice in 2021 for The Hand of God about his childhood in Naples — both of which also starred Mr. Servillo.

Many of his films are sensual, opulent, and even surreal. La Grazia by contrast is often austere and sparse as it follows the elderly president grappling with his conscience, sparring with his intellectual daughter and mourning his late wife.

Mr. Sorrentino described his protagonist as a man who, behind his rigorous exterior, embodies “a high idea of politics,” which he said was increasingly hard to find in real life.

Amid the drama come trademark flashes of Sorrentino comedy, with the president learning the lyrics to a rap song, much to the surprise of a ceremonial guard, and seeking counsel from a black, scooter-driving pope.

But the core themes are dealt with sensitively and Mr. Sorrentino said he hoped his movie might help convince politicians in Italy to finally draw up a law on assisted dying.

“It’s well known that (cinema) no longer has the devastating impact of popularity it once had, but it can still try. So I can simply hope that a film, in this case my film, can bring attention back to a theme that… is fundamental,” he said. — Reuters