THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 59 AUGUST 21, 2019
on financing from Tunisian
producer Tarak Ben Ammar
(see page 60), a former inves-
tor and board member of The
Wei n stei n Co.
But both filmmakers will be
honored guests in Venice, even
if Polanski can attend only via
Skype given that he would likely
face extradition if he sets foot
outside France, where he resides.
“I can’t believe Venice pulled this shit
again,” one female filmmaker tells THR.
“Not only do they basically snub women,
but then they put Polanski in competition. I
think the message they are sending is loud
and clear: They want to continue celebrating
people who have been convicted or accused
of sexual assault.”
The Venice festival does not seem both-
ered. Speaking to THR after the officiallineup announcement, Barbera defended
Polanski as “one of the last great European
filmmakers, one of the last true artists from
the classical period of 20th century cinema.”
He then compared Polanski’s criminal record
to that of Italian painter Caravaggio, who
was convicted of murder. “He was a killer, but
he’s one of the major painters of the Italian
Baroque period. It’s not so different.”
This comparison strikes Alessia
Sonaglioni, network director for the
European Women’s Audiovisual Network, a
group that promotes gender equality across
the film and TV industries in Europe, as out
of step with the times. “Caravaggio lived
in the 16th century; we’re in the 21st. You’d
think things would have changed,” she says.
“But in Venice, it’s the same old mantra ...
they don’t really care about the gender issue.”
Barbera has built his reputation, in part, by
thumbing his nose at industry convention.
When he took over as fest director in 2011 —
returning after a short, tumultuous term as
Venice head from 1998 to 2002 — he trans-
formed the world’s oldest film festival, once
a haven for European art house titles, into a
brazen platform for Oscar contenders includ-
ing Gravity, Birdman, La La Land and, last
year, Roma, The Favourite and A Star Is Born.
The festival has courted controversy in
recent years well outside gender-equity
issues. When Netflix’s Roma won 2018’s
Golden Lion, a national uproar ensued, with
Italian exhibitors blasting Barbera for turn-
ing Venice into little more than a “marketing
vehicle” for the streaming giant. Undeterred,
this year Barbera has selected three Netflix
films: Steven Soderbergh’s The Laundromat
and Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story in com-
petition and, in an out-of-competition slot,
David Michôd’s The King.
So far, Barbera’s Oscar play seems to be
working. Venice is back on top among the
world’s most prestigious film festivals — on
par with Cannes, and with an impressive
awards-season pedigree.
“Maybe we should all be like Venice — just
ignore everything you journalists and the PC
media say with regard to gender equality and
Netflix and do whatever we want,” the head of
another major A-list festival tells THR, “and
then sit back and hear how we are the best
festival in the world.”
To Silverstein, Venice appears to be simply
paying lip service to women’s issues by sign-
ing the so-called 50/50 by 2020 pledge last
year (it was the last major film fest to do so).
After all, the twin billing of Polanski and
Parker speaks volumes.
“So they have to make a decision, which
they clearly did, that it was worth it for them
to program these people,” she says. “We
are way past the time when these things go
unnoticed. But I don’t think they give a fly-
ing fuck.”THR CRITIC’S PICKS:
5 FILMS NOT TO MISSCITIZEN K
Alex Gibney’s latest doc looks at the strange
case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once believed
to be Russia’s richest man before serving
a decade in prison for fraud and becoming an
unlikely martyr to the anti-Putin cause.THE KING
Aussie David Michôd has assembled a deluxe
ensemble for his fresh take on Shakespeare’s
Henriad: Timothée Chalamet as wayward
prince Hal, Robert Pattinson as the Dauphin of
France and Joel Edgerton, who co-wrote
the screenplay, as Hal’s dedicated companion
in drunken debauchery, Falstaff.MARRIAGE STORY
Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson face off
as an experimental New York theater director
and his actress wife, an L.A. transplant,
negotiating a supposedly amicable divorce that
turns into a cross-country custody battle.AN OFFICER AND A SPY
Roman Polanski may not be able to risk
attending the fest, but his presence will be felt
with his drama about a late 19th century
French Jewish artillery officer falsely accused
of treason and sentenced to life in prison.SEBERG
Kristen Stewart portrays the American
nouvelle vague gamine as she’s investigated
by an ambitious young FBI agent for her
involvement in civil rights turbulence in late-
1960s Los Angeles. — DAVID ROONEYPolanskiBarberaFILM FESTIVAL