Biennale Cinema
History of the Venice Film Festival
The Eighties
It took Carlo Lizzani, director from 1979 to 1982, to win back international prestige for the Festival, flanking films in competition with significant retrospectives, sections devoted to experimentation ("Officina") and most importantly the new section "Mezzogiorno-Mezzanotte" devoted to spectacular films (Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark and E.T.), remakes (Vertigo, Leave Her to Heaven) or eccentrics, ideated by the great, late critic Enzo Ungari. The formula inaugurated by the Lizzani-Ungari duo was to become a model for festivals throughout the world.
In 1980 the Golden Lion was re-introduced, with an ex aequo award for Louis Malle (Atlantic City) and John Cassavetes (Gloria). Over these years Venice helped establish New German Cinema throughout the world. Filmmakers such as Wim Wenders and Margarethe Von Trotta (the first woman to win the Golden Lion) received the highest recognition at the Festival, Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980) was screened in episodes to great acclaim while the controversial Querelle de Brest, presented in '82, a matter of months after the death of the director, divided the jury when it did not win the Golden Lion.
The new course was consolidated in 1983, under the direction of Gian Luigi Rondi. The Festivals were numbered once again, expanded organisation planned for, the sections were made permanent fixtures and greater attention given to the masters of cinema from the past and present. Godard won in '83 with Prénom Carmen, Zanussi in '84 with A Year of the Quiet Sun, Agnes Varda in '85 with Vagabonde, Rohmer in '86 with Le rayon vert. 1984 saw the creation of SIC, the International Critics' Week, run independently by the National Italian Film Critics Union and devoted to debut and second works.
Guglielmo Biraghi, writer and film critic for the Rome daily "Il Messaggero", not to mention director of the Taormina Festival, became the 14th director of the Venice Festival in 1987. Widely travelled and a great linguist, Biraghi (who passed away in 2001) distinguished his mandate (extended for five festivals up until 1991) with a taste for experimentation and discovering unusual filmmakers and types of cinema. Biraghi's first Festival featured a competition line-up of an Indian, Lebanese, Swiss, Norwegian, Korean and Turkish film. In 1989 he presented O Recado das Ilhas by Ruy Duarte de Carvalho, the very first film from the Cape Verde islands ever to be screened at an international festival.
