Cate Blanchett first appeared at Venice in 1999 with The Talented Mr Ripley, just as her international career was accelerating. Since then she has returned often, from winning the Volpi Cup for I’m Not There in 2007 to serving as jury president in 2020. This year her presence carried the same restraint she brings to her performances, deliberate and unforced. At a panel she described cinema as “a series of echoes that return when you least expect them,” a line that fit both her career and the rhythm of the festival itself.
Venice as a Test of Endurance
The 82nd edition leaned toward younger directors, with more than a dozen films from those under 40. For the world’s oldest film festival, founded in 1932, that tilt matters. Venice has often been ahead of its time in what it rewards. Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere won the Golden Lion in 2010, dismissed at the time yet later reassessed as one of the decade’s most influential works of quiet cinema. Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain split critics in 2006 but is now viewed as central to his career. Venice does not chase consensus. It measures films by what lasts.
Venice has always been a place where the way we look matters as much as what we see. This year several premieres embraced the precision of digital, with cameras capturing every pore and shadow, while others deliberately returned to 16mm and grain for the sake of expression. The technical advancement of lenses now allows for an almost surgical clarity, yet directors increasingly choose imperfection as a way to regain atmosphere. That tension mirrors what happens outside the theatre. Sunglasses on the Lido are more than shields against the Adriatic glare, they are choices of perspective. The right pair does not only cut through brightness, it frames how the world is read. In a city built on reflection, from water to glass, the perspective you carry defines the story you tell.
“The visionary is the only true realist. The things you see in a film are not just an image of the world, they are the world itself filtered through the imagination. To invent is not to escape reality but to re-create it in its most essential form.”
