Interview: Venice Film Festival pursues art-business balance -- director

The Venice International Film Festival aims to strike a balance between art and business, the festival's director Alberto Barbera told Xinhua.

"Venice festival is different from all the others, especially from the Toronto one, which is a sort of cinema supermarket with a line-up of 300-400 short and long movies," Barbera said.

According to Barbera, the festival has almost halved the number of films to 55 in the three main competition sections.

"We work on quality and not on quantity, with the goal to offer the most complete possible picture of contemporary cinema, from films for the general public to art or debut films," Barbera said.

Yet he acknowledged that the commercial side of a film festival is essential. That's why a film market was created in Venice four years ago.

"At that time we had good delegations of directors and actors but the business side, which is fundamental, was missing. By creating a film market we convinced many commercial operators to come back to Venice, which was useful to revitalize the festival," the director recalled.

He also said a balance between art and business in films is possible.

"We reach it through an attentive selection of works. Even among commercial films there are some high-quality ones that are the result of ideas and reflection, and are able to innovate and introduce original elements. Quality does also exist in mass cinema." < Barbera also noted it is impossible now to talk just about a single cinema.

"There are many diverse models of cinema and a big vitality, as well as a continuous need for innovation. The cinema of the 20th century was dead. There has been the digital revolution, and a new cinema and a new generation of directors have been born."

The objective of his festival is to discover and explore the novelties.

In particular, this year was characterized by a return-to-reality trend globally.

"Most films are inspired by reality, true stories or historical facts and characters," he noted.

Barbera said these films highlight "a shared need for reflection on reality and on the problems of contemporary society" and they cast influence on our lives "in a moment that humankind seems to have lost control over reality and big historical events such as terrorism, immigration or economy evolution."

China's presence at the festival was strong while other Asian countries such as Japan and South Korea were almost absent, Barbera noted.

As many as eight Chinese films were presented at the festival. "It is a special moment for China, whose cinema market is booming," he said, adding that the Chinese cinema industry is investing heavily in commercial films for large audiences.

Barbera noted while China's commercial films are quite "local" thus non-exportable into the Western world, there are also "interesting art films and young talented filmmakers who are experimenting new roads, different from those of the fifth or sixth generation Chinese directors who made the Chinese cinema known in the world at the end of 20th century."

"We are working to make various Chinese cinemas known in the world. We will close the festival with "Mr. Six" (from China). It is a commercial film but with strong original elements, a great actor, and a capacity to reflect on the transformations of China's society, both its old and contemporary values," he said, adding that the Venice festival does treasure the complexity of today's Chinese cinema. Endi