Ninety years and don't prove it. And the super birthday of the Venice Film Festival that the Biennale remembers with a beautiful exhibition dedicated to the first edition of 1932 hosted in the spaces on the ground floor, the "portego", of Ca 'Giustinian, seat of the Venetian cultural institution. The first International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art, as it was called at the time before taking the name of Exhibition took place from 6 to 21 August 1932. It was born from an idea of the then president of the Biennale Giuseppe Volpi, the sculptor Antonio Maraini and the film critic Luciano De Feo.
The subscription for all the screenings cost one hundred lire, the evening tickets 15 lire and the series of fifteen scheduled screenings was held on the terrace of the Hotel Excelsior on the Lido of Venice. Opening film for the opening night of that first edition, Dr. Jekill and Mr Hyde, “Ed Paramount - Short Sonoro” as the original poster shown in this review explains. Second film on the bill Frankenstein. And then to run, a beautiful exhibition that recalls not only a chapter in the history of cinema through testimonies and documents of the period, but also the climate of an era, between culture and worldliness, black and white images and newspaper articles yellowed by the time. With photos of the Lido beach in the background, which in those days was considered one of the most beautiful in the world. As well as his film festival, the oldest in the world.
Louis Lumière, the father of the cinema, was also on the Honorary Committee of that first edition
Among the documents proposed, the letter with which Louis Lumière, the father of the cinema, agrees to be part of the Committee of Honor. And the referendum card proposed to the public at the time to elect the best actress and the best actor makes a smile. But also the director of the “funniest” film, of the most moving one. Of the most original and pure film of the film with the “greatest technical perfection. "It had been a lucky and far-sighted edition”, So the president of the Biennale Roberto Cicutto and the director of the Film Festival Alberto Barbera. A way to legitimize "Once and for all the artistic nature of cinema. The new medium was born as a freak phenomenon and quickly established itself as the largest and most popular mass spectacle, giving it the dignity of the other Arts that the Biennale had occupied up to that moment ".
Movie posters, playbills, set photos: an exhibition that tells the story of cinema but also an era
Fascinating, lined up on display as if it were a path, i movie posters of the time. As well as the posters original programs, the scene photo of the films presented, the topical photo in the context of the Lido of the time, the papers , correspondence which testify to the birth and organization of the exhibition, i communicated , press review. Many newspaper articles witnessing an event destined to become fundamental in the history of cinema. A few titles: "First Film Biennale in Venice, “Films from all countries at the Film Festival”, “Venice, the metropolis of Cinelandia”, “Fifteen evenings of screenings by the sea”,…. . In the context of the exhibition they are also screened documentaries ofLight Institute on Venice and the vintage Lido. It's a movie of 30 'with a selection of scenes from the films presented to that first edition of 1932.
The exhibition is interesting, curious, refined The first International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art from the Venice Biennale Archive, open (with free admission) until 31 December - celebrates the ninety years of the Venice Film Festival but also opens the Venetian cinema season. The next International Film Festival, edition number 79, will be held at Lido of Venice from 31 August to 10 September.
