Perhaps, never before as today has cinema been forced to face transformations so profound that it risks becoming unrecognizable. Not the passage from silent movies to talkies, and not even the leap from analogical to digital undermined the premises that helped make cinema, right from its emergence, the most complete and thrilling way to represent the world. And yet, those changes were so profound and radical that they affected the language, aesthetics, and production means as a whole, contributing to the unprecedented impact of film on the way we perceive reality and relate to it. The revolution we have the privilege of witnessing today, which seems to generate more panic than positive expectations just now, is defined by the term (already contested by some people) “Artificial Intelligence.” Its application in the cinematographic field is still rather limited and, to a large degree, intends to substitute the use of digital special effects that, for more than twenty years, represented the indispensable, instrumental baggage of every film production (at a lower cost and with even more amazing results). However, its use is undoubtedly destined to become much more invasive and decisive, opening a new, unlimited, and, generally, still unexplored frontier for auteurist creativity.
And yet, Artificial Intelligence is actually discussed quite a lot, to the point that it has become a cliché in contemporary journalism, even if much of the recurring debate is characterized by deep-seated suspicion that is more the result of a superficial approach than of an ability to define its contours and analyze its potential. AI will be discussed on various occasions during this edition of the Venice International Film Festival, as well, without prejudice and with the attention that an instrument merits when it is so innovative that it portends an impact of historic proportions on the entire human race. An Italian documentary – which does not conceal its nature as a work that was entirely generated by AI, albeit under the impulse and ultimate creative control of its auteur – and an important symposium thanks to the high profile of its participants are just two of the moments that intend to focus attention on the creative and artistic potential of an innovation destined to surpass the impact which the industrial revolution of the second half of the 19th century had on human society as a whole.
One of the numerous questions that emerge in this context is whether cinema, which, for an entire century and for entire generations of spectators, “was the world” (in the words of many people, including Leonardo Sciascia), can continue to be so. That is, whether it can continue to be our most important instrument for knowing reality and ourselves, the window through which we gain awareness of the most important events of contemporary times. The window through which we filter our comprehension of history, geography, current events, and politics; and through which we immerse ourselves in the abysses of the mystery that is the human being and rebel against our daily lives in an attempt to comprehend and represent the transcendental dimension that towers above us. I believe that many of the films that form the program of the 83rd Venice Film Festival offer multiple, positive indications that can help resolve this doubt. Ready to wager, with Esther Kinsky, that the cinema will continue to be that place of rarely disappointed expectations in which we grew up, giving form to the passion that, still today, encourages us to believe in its future.
