During his illustration of the movies for Venice 73, director Alberto Barbera said that directors are talking about the present again this year; except that they are doing it by “mediating”: through novels, theater, history, or even science fiction and westerns.
The film “American Anarchist” by Charlie Siskel also draws inspiration from a book: but here the mediation refers to a burning topical issue because the book in question is “The Anarchist Cookbook”, a bestseller that came out at the beginning of the Seventies and taught people how to make weapons and explosives at home.
We are also brought back to the present day by the announcement that the safety measures at the Lido have been reinforced through the setting up of a “red zone” in the Festival quad which will filter the public on the “red carpet”, the catwalk along which the artists pass in order to get to the “Palazzo del Cinema”.

Another new feature is that the famous “black hole”, the crater- memory of the “Palazzo del Cinema” that never was (cost: € 38 million), has finally been filled with a new movie theater, where a sophisticated program will be screened for the benefit of a wider public pf viewers.
It has also been revealed that Italian cinema is finding the Lido to be an increasingly difficult point of arrival: after already receiving a “warning” last year (“there is more shadow than light”), this year it has been manifestly liquidated by Barbera (“the level of the films has, if possible, fallen even lower”), once again in tune with the DG Cinema Nicola Borrelli who, on the occasion of the presentation of the Report on Italian Cinema, also in the month of July, defined our cinema as being “small and cramped”.

Finally, there is something new for professionals at the Lido who will be able to discover the Venice Production Bridge, the projects market to which the industry dimension of the Festival has chosen to entrust its identity.