History, tradition and future
The 79th Venice International Film Festival coincides with two very significant anniversaries.
The first—the 90th year after its foundation in 1932—signals the importance of an event that has shaped the history of cinema and that has led to its official recognition as the seventh art.
The second—ten years of activity on the part of the Biennale College Cinema—has made a concrete contribution to its history by looking to the future and taking on board the experience gained from new technologies and new forms of storytelling.
Both anniversaries have found a tangible mark in two important publications: Gian Piero Brunetta’s volume La Mostra Internazionale d’Arte Cinematografica di Venezia 1932-2022, published by Edizioni La Biennale di Venezia and Marsilio Editori, and the book Dieci – Biennale College Cinema 2012-2022, published by Edizioni La Biennale di Venezia.
History, tradition and future have been present in all the sectors of La Biennale di Venezia throughout the 127 years of its existence (1895, date of the first International Art Exhibition, not coincidentally also that of the first screening of the Lumière brothers’ invention).
College Cinema is accompanied by colleges devoted to Dance, Music, Theatre and, from this year, the Art Exhibition too.
The dialogue between the arts fostered by La Biennale has found a home in the now up and running International Centre for Research on the Contemporary Arts, a natural extension of the activity of the Biennale’s Historical Archive.
The venues of La Biennale and the Film Festival in particular have already benefited from major investments in infrastructure and technological upgrading, and will do so even more in the coming years. In particular these have been aimed at attaining carbon neutrality, a primary objective since 2020 that has already achieved concrete results, such as the supply of energy solely from green sources and financial compensation based on the collection of data on CO2 emission at all our events.
All this has been made possible by collateral funds of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, which have been allocated to La Biennale as part of a program aimed at the strengthening of its activities and the renovation of important sites in the city, such as the Arsenale, the Lido, Forte Marghera and the Parco Albanese alla Bissuola in Mestre.