The Venice International Film Festival is the world’s first film festival and one of the industry’s so-called “big three” alongside Cannes and Berlin. It’s an event that film creatives and aficionados look forward to all year. Held in the iconic lagoon city, the festival is organized by La Biennale di Venezia, one of the world’s most prestigious cultural institutions. This year’s 80th Venice International Film Festival will take place at the Lido di Venezia, a seven-mile-long barrier island that protects the lagoon from the Adriatic Sea, between August 30 and September 9, 2023.
Since 1932, the Venice International Film Festival has been aiming to raise awareness and promote international cinema as a form of art and entertainment. Supported and recognized by the International Federation of Film Producers Associations, the festival is an international competition comprising 21 feature-length films presented as world premieres. This year’s films hail from countries such as Chile, Poland, Sweden, Italy, the United States, Japan, and more.
All production and distribution companies and filmmakers can submit films for selection for the Venice International Film Festival, given that they are submitted and registered by a given date that can be found on the festival’s website. All selected films must be exclusively presented in their original language, as the festival does not accept dubbed films. Foreign language films must be subtitled in Italian, and Italian language films must be subtitled in English.
The festival is organized by La Biennale di Venezia, a 125-year-old cultural institution founded in 1895 with the first International Art Exhibition. Over the decades, festivals surrounding new facets of art were created. In 1980, the first International Architecture Exhibition took place, followed in 1999 by Dance.
La Biennale also organizes courses and internships for prospective, young talents. There is the Biennale College, a project that allows budding talents to work alongside masters in the fields of dance, theater, music, and cinema. Calls for participants to take part in training workshops in Venice take place annually. There is also the Biennale College internship for university students who wish to deepen their understanding and mastery of craft in the fields of organization, management, administration, technical support, editorial work, and communication. It is an on-site learning experience aimed at developing skills necessary to the daily organizational structure of La Biennale di Venezia.
Asia London Palomba
Asia London Palomba is a trilingual freelance journalist from Rome, Italy. In the past, her work on culture, travel, and history has been published in The Boston Globe, Atlas Obscura, The Christian Science Monitor, and Grub Street, New York Magazine's food section. In her free time, Asia enjoys traveling home to Italy to spend time with family and friends, drinking Hugo Spritzes, and making her nonna's homemade cavatelli.