Venice Chief Alberto Barbera on Netflix, State of Global Cinema, and Why Dwayne Johnson Could be Headed for Oscar Glory
Venice artistic director Alberto Barbera unveiled one of the richest Venice Film Festival lineups in recent memory on Tuesday, set to reinforce the Lido’s standing as the circuit’s top awards season driver, as well as a prime promoter of the cream of the global cinematic crop.
A few hours after revealing his selection, Barbera, who’s been at the helm of Venice since the 2012 edition, speaks to Variety about welcoming Netflix back to the Lido after a one year gap, how Venice reflects the state of the U.S. film industry and of moviemaking in the rest of the world and why Dwayne Johnson could have a shot at Oscar glory.
Yes, I’m happy because most of the hotly anticipated films are in our program. I’d say we got close to 98 percent. I’m very happy because it’s a very well-assorted program. As always, we have the big name directors. But we also have surprises, new talents, and films from underrepresented areas.
I never talk about films that we don’t have. That said, I would not be surprised if this film resurfaces as a world premiere in other festivals. We have three Netflix movies in competition [Kathryn Bigelow’s “A House of Dynamite,” Noah Baumbach’s “Jay Kelly,” Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein”]. Berger’s new film is also a Netflix production. It just seemed a bit much to have four. As things stand, I expect someone to say that we were too generous with the streaming platform. I don’t think so. But four would have been overdoing it.
I don’t think so, but as you can see from the program, we don’t have any films produced by the studios. The U.S. studios are certainly still looking for a new identity after the crisis, after all the turbulence of these past years and their botched attempts to reinvent themselves. From that standpoint, there is the confirmation of a state of uncertainty that continues to exist. All of the many American films in Venice are either from the indie sector or from the streamers, especially Netflix and Amazon. They [the streamers] are continuing to produce with the necessary resources to make auteur cinema. Netflix makes an exorbitant amount of titles, most of which do not interest us. They are just product for straight-to-platform consumption. But, aside from last year’s hiatus, due in part to a change in management, they are continuing to make auteur cinema with economic resources for those types of films that the studios can no longer afford. The same goes for Amazon. Then there are the U.S. indies [A24, Neon, Focus Features, etc.] that produced the rest of the interesting films that we will see in Venice this year. There is this type of polarization in American cinema right now.
British cinema lives partly in the orbit of American cinema and, on the other hand, continues to make indie movies, not all of which manage to travel. But the Brits are interesting and British producers are opening up to co-productions which I think is significant because it bucks the trend of the U.K.’s political choice [Brexit] with regards to Europe. Outside the Anglo-Saxon spere, there are cinematographies that continue to be strong like French and Italian cinema, and other parts of the world that are suffering from political uncertainty. There are less films coming from Southeast Asia, even though we have two films from that area in competition this year for the first time in many years. As for Latin American, even though we have a Colombian film, one from Ecuador, one from Mexico and two small Argentinian films, Brazil is totally absent because the country is coming from four years of dictatorship of [Jair] Bolsonaro who did everything in his power to quash auteur cinema. Argentina is in the hands of [Javier Gerardo] Milei who is trying to do the same thing to Argentinian cinema. Africa, which, in perspective, is certainly the continent best positioned to spawn new auteurs, is still not very relevant. Lots of their films, co-produced with France, go to Cannes and they already surfaced. So we only have a handful of African movies, but they are significant and stand as testimony to the vitality of a cinematography that I think is destined to grow.
Yes.
Dwayne Johnson is amazing in the film, as is Emily Blunt. Their performances really blew us away. At the start of the year I went to New York to meet Benny Safdie, who showed me some scenes from the film shot in Tokyo on his cell. I expected it to be a very spectacular film destined for out-of-competition. Instead, I discovered that this is a really great movie about two great characters that manages to reconstruct not just the life and the problems of wrestling champion Mark Kerr, but also to depict a world and a particular time [the aughts]. So as soon as we saw it we had no doubts that this was a film for competition that is destined to make its mark. I don’t know if it will make its way to the Oscars, but I certainly think that A24 is going to go that route.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
A few hours after revealing his selection, Barbera, who’s been at the helm of Venice since the 2012 edition, speaks to Variety about welcoming Netflix back to the Lido after a one year gap, how Venice reflects the state of the U.S. film industry and of moviemaking in the rest of the world and why Dwayne Johnson could have a shot at Oscar glory.
Yes, I’m happy because most of the hotly anticipated films are in our program. I’d say we got close to 98 percent. I’m very happy because it’s a very well-assorted program. As always, we have the big name directors. But we also have surprises, new talents, and films from underrepresented areas.
I never talk about films that we don’t have. That said, I would not be surprised if this film resurfaces as a world premiere in other festivals. We have three Netflix movies in competition [Kathryn Bigelow’s “A House of Dynamite,” Noah Baumbach’s “Jay Kelly,” Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein”]. Berger’s new film is also a Netflix production. It just seemed a bit much to have four. As things stand, I expect someone to say that we were too generous with the streaming platform. I don’t think so. But four would have been overdoing it.
I don’t think so, but as you can see from the program, we don’t have any films produced by the studios. The U.S. studios are certainly still looking for a new identity after the crisis, after all the turbulence of these past years and their botched attempts to reinvent themselves. From that standpoint, there is the confirmation of a state of uncertainty that continues to exist. All of the many American films in Venice are either from the indie sector or from the streamers, especially Netflix and Amazon. They [the streamers] are continuing to produce with the necessary resources to make auteur cinema. Netflix makes an exorbitant amount of titles, most of which do not interest us. They are just product for straight-to-platform consumption. But, aside from last year’s hiatus, due in part to a change in management, they are continuing to make auteur cinema with economic resources for those types of films that the studios can no longer afford. The same goes for Amazon. Then there are the U.S. indies [A24, Neon, Focus Features, etc.] that produced the rest of the interesting films that we will see in Venice this year. There is this type of polarization in American cinema right now.
British cinema lives partly in the orbit of American cinema and, on the other hand, continues to make indie movies, not all of which manage to travel. But the Brits are interesting and British producers are opening up to co-productions which I think is significant because it bucks the trend of the U.K.’s political choice [Brexit] with regards to Europe. Outside the Anglo-Saxon spere, there are cinematographies that continue to be strong like French and Italian cinema, and other parts of the world that are suffering from political uncertainty. There are less films coming from Southeast Asia, even though we have two films from that area in competition this year for the first time in many years. As for Latin American, even though we have a Colombian film, one from Ecuador, one from Mexico and two small Argentinian films, Brazil is totally absent because the country is coming from four years of dictatorship of [Jair] Bolsonaro who did everything in his power to quash auteur cinema. Argentina is in the hands of [Javier Gerardo] Milei who is trying to do the same thing to Argentinian cinema. Africa, which, in perspective, is certainly the continent best positioned to spawn new auteurs, is still not very relevant. Lots of their films, co-produced with France, go to Cannes and they already surfaced. So we only have a handful of African movies, but they are significant and stand as testimony to the vitality of a cinematography that I think is destined to grow.
Yes.
Dwayne Johnson is amazing in the film, as is Emily Blunt. Their performances really blew us away. At the start of the year I went to New York to meet Benny Safdie, who showed me some scenes from the film shot in Tokyo on his cell. I expected it to be a very spectacular film destined for out-of-competition. Instead, I discovered that this is a really great movie about two great characters that manages to reconstruct not just the life and the problems of wrestling champion Mark Kerr, but also to depict a world and a particular time [the aughts]. So as soon as we saw it we had no doubts that this was a film for competition that is destined to make its mark. I don’t know if it will make its way to the Oscars, but I certainly think that A24 is going to go that route.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.