Film Festivals

Actress Vanessa Redgrave will be awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 75th Venice International Film Festival (29 August – 8 September, 2018). Vanessa Redgrave joins director David Cronenberg, who will also receive the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 75th Venice Film Festival. Vanessa Redgrave declared: “I am astonished and especially delighted to hear that I will be awarded by the Venice Film Festival for a life’s work in film. Last summer I was filming in Venice in The Aspern Papers. Many many years ago I filmed La vacanza in the marshes of the Veneto. My character spoke every word in the Venetian dialect. I bet I am the only non-Italian actress to act an entire role in Venetian dialect! Thank you a million dear Festival! “. Alberto Barbera declared: “Unanimously considered one of today’s best actresses, Redgrave’s sensitive, infinitely faceted performances ideally render complex and often controversial characters. Gifted with a natural elegance, innate seductive power, and extraordinary talent, she can nonchalantly pass from European art house cinema to lavish Hollywood productions, from the stage to TV sets, each time offering top-quality results. In the sixty years of her professional activity, her performances have displayed authoritativeness and total control over the roles she plays, a boundless and highly sophisticated generosity, and a healthy dose of the courage and fighting spirit which are a hallmark of her compassionate, artistic nature”.

Vanessa Redgrave Biography

Born into a thespian family, nominated six times for an Oscar (she won in 1977 for her performance in Julia), and the winner of a Volpi Cup in Venice in 1994 for Little Odessa, for 60 years, Vanessa Redgrave has been one of the best-loved and most-sought-after actresses of international art house cinema. A stage actress as well, she has won a Tony Award and an Olivier Award for best actress. Among her most recent works, in 2018 she performed in The Aspern Papers by Julian Landais, with Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Joely Richardson; Mrs Lowry & Son by Adrian Noble, with Timothy Spall; and Georgetown by Christoph Waltz, with Annette Bening. In 2017, she directed and starred in Sea Sorrow with Ralph Fiennes and Emma Thompson (produced by Carlo Nero) and she performed at the Young Vic Theatre in The Inheritance by Matthew Lopez, produced by Sonia Friedman and directed by Stephen Daldry. Redgrave was born in London in 1937 and studied acting at London’s Central School of Music and Dance. Her family has a long and glorious tradition in film and on the stage. Her paternal grandfather, Roy Redgrave, was one of Australia’s most famous silent movie actors. Her father, Michael, and her mother, Rachel Kempson, were members of the Old Vic Theater. Her father, in particular, was also a well-known movie actor. Right from an early age, Vanessa was a successful stage actress and she debuted on the silver screen alongside her father in 1958 in the comedy Behind the Mask. She then dedicated herself to theatre and became a member of the Stratford-upon-Avon Theater Company. This is where she met director Tony Richardson, who, in the early 1960s, became her husband and directed her in Shakespeare plays. In 1966, Redgrave returned to the silver screen in Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment, by Karel Reisz, which won her the award for best actress at Cannes and her first Oscar nomination. Always in 1966, she performed in Blow-up by Michelangelo Antonioni. The topic of incommunicability, one of the Italian director’s favorites, found a perfect interpreter in that young, enigmatic woman who can express herself almost without speaking. One year later, Joshua Logan brought her to the United States to shoot Camelot, after which Vanessa returned to Europe for two more films directed by Richardson, The Sailor from Gibraltar, and in 1968, The Charge of the Light Brigade. That same year, she portrayed the non-conformist ballerina Isadora Duncan in Isadora (1968) by Karel Reisz (her second Oscar nomination). In 1971, she played the unlucky queen in Mary, Queen of Scots (1971, her third nomination for an Oscar), a nun in The Devils by Ken Russel, and a girl confined in a madhouse in Vacation by Tinto Brass, which stars Franco Nero and was presented at the Venice Film Festival. Vanessa Redgrave won an Oscar for her performance as the brave and headstrong Julia (1977), by Fred Zinnemann. In 1984, James Ivory directed her in The Bostonians (another Oscar nomination) and in 1985 she played the lonely teacher in Wetherby (1985) by David Hare. She received her sixth Oscar nomination for her portrayal of sensitive Ruth Wilcox in Howard’s End (1992), once again by James Ivory. In 1994, she received the Volpi Cup in Venice for Little Odessa by James Gray. She played the bitter protagonist in Mrs Dalloway (1997) by Marleen Gorris and in 2007 she starred in Atonement by Joe Wright, the opening film at the Venice Film Festival that year.

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A Star is Born, the much-anticipated directorial debut of four-time Oscar® nominee Bradley Cooper and feature film debut of award-winning actor and Oscar® -nominated musical artist Lady Gaga, will have its out-of-competition world premiere at the 75th Venice International Film Festival. The premiere screening of A Star is Born, which was also co-written and produced by Cooper, will be held on Friday, August 31st, in the Sala Grande at the Palazzo del Cinema on the Venice Lido. The 75th Venice International Film Festival will take place at the Lido from August 29 to September 8, 2018; it is directed by Alberto Barbera and organized by la Biennale di Venezia, chaired by Paolo Baratta. Slated for release beginning October 5, 2018, the film will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. In this new take on the powerful love story, Cooper plays seasoned musician Jackson Maine, who discovers—and falls in love with—struggling artist Ally (Gaga). She has just about given up on her dream to make it big as a singer until Jack coaxes her into the spotlight. But even as Ally’s career takes off, the personal side of their relationship is breaking down, as Jack fights an ongoing battle with his own internal demons. A Star is Born features original songs performed live on-camera by Cooper and Gaga, who wrote a number of tracks together and in collaboration with such musical artists as Lukas Nelson, Jason Isbell and Mark Ronson. The film’s ensemble cast also includes Andrew Dice Clay, with Dave Chappelle and Sam Elliott.

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First Man, directed by Damien Chazelle (La La Land, Whiplash) and starring Ryan Gosling, Jason Clarke and Claire Foy, will World Premiere as the opening night film, in Competition, of the 75th Venice International Film Festival (August 29 – September 8, 2018). Festival director Alberto Barbera declared: “It is a true privilege to present the world premiere of Damien Chazelle’s new, highly-awaited film. It is a very personal, original and compelling piece of work, wonderfully unexpected within the context of present day epic films, and a confirmation of the great talent of one of the most important contemporary directors of American cinema. Our gratitude goes to Universal Pictures for premiering First Man at the 75th Venice Film Festival.” Chazelle declared:”I am humbled by Venice’s invitation and am thrilled to return. It feels especially poignant to share this news so close to the moon landing’s anniversary. I eagerly look forward to bringing the film to the festival.” First Man will be shown in its world premiere screening on Wednesday August 29th, in the Sala Grande at the Palazzo del Cinema on the Lido di Venezia. On the heels of their six-time Academy Award®-winning smash, La La Land, Oscar®-winning director Damien Chazelle and star Ryan Gosling reteam for Universal Pictures’ First Man, the riveting story of NASA’s mission to land a man on the moon, focusing on Neil Armstrong and the years 1961-1969. A visceral, first-person account, based on the book by James R. Hansen, the movie will explore the sacrifices and the cost—on Armstrong and on the nation—of one of the most dangerous missions in history. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9Y7DTCn7Cc

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