World Movie News: The Last 24 Hours
Yuval Abraham brings Naza to Venice’s main competition, Serena Rossi collects the Campari Passion for Film award ahead of Scherzetto’s premiere, sad news for Italian actor Elio Zamuto, and happy birthday to Colin Firth and Guy Ritchie.
Morning all — the Lido keeps throwing up genuinely weighty premieres, and today’s is one of the more politically charged of the whole festival. Here’s what happened in the world of movies during the last 24 hours.
Naza brings its geopolitical weight to Venice’s main competition: Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor’s documentary Naza had its main competition premiere yesterday, turning festival attention toward documented military systems in the Middle East. Abraham previously won the Oscar for Best Documentary alongside his collaborators with the brilliant No Other Land, so expectations were always going to be high — and given the Gaza-related tensions that have shadowed this entire edition of Venice, from the Venice4Palestine open letter to the festival’s own U-turn on its jury press conference, Naza‘s premiere landed with rather more weight than most Tuesday-afternoon screenings usually carry.
Serena Rossi honoured ahead of Scherzetto‘s premiere: Elsewhere on the Lido, Italian actress Serena Rossi received the Campari Passion for Film award at the Sala Grande, presented ahead of the out-of-competition premiere of Mario Martone’s Scherzetto, adapted from Domenico Starnone’s novel. So Venice’s home crowd gets its own moments amid all the international awards-season jostling.
And in one final, sad piece of news: Italian actor and voice actor Elio Zamuto — born Elio Mazzamuto in Syracuse, Sicily — has died aged 85. A respected figure across decades of Italian film and dubbing work, his passing adds a quieter, sadder note to what’s otherwise been a big week for Italian cinema on the world stage.
Happy birthday to Colin Firth and Guy Ritchie: Rounding things off, happy birthday today to The King’s Speech and Bridget Jones star Colin Firth, who turns 66, alongside filmmaker Guy Ritchie, who turns 58.
That’s all for today. I still have a lot of films to catch up on but more reviews to write!
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