We are pleased to reshare this article published on éNordEst, written by journalist Valter Esposito, covering the press conference presenting the 2026 Venice Film Festival. The photographs accompanying the piece were taken by Barbara Pigazzi, our photographer, exclusively for the publication. An opportunity to share this collaboration and the work carried out at the Lido here as well.
“Lupus in fabula…superior stabat lupus.” With this phrase drawn from Aesop’s fables and made famous in Latin by Phaedrus, Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, president of the Venice Biennale, added a bit of “spice” yesterday morning during the press conference presenting the eighty-third Venice Film Festival (running September 2–12). The event was held inside the ASAC library (Historical Archive of Contemporary Arts) at the Giardini.
After thanking all the relevant authorities, institutions and sponsors, Buttafuoco chose to close his remarks with this small jab — aimed at the European Union for permanently cutting the two million euros in funding for hosting the Russian pavilion at the last Visual Arts Biennale. Buttafuoco’s comment referred to the fact that this two million was cut from the Venice Biennale just six months after six billion had been given to Putin. Buttafuoco said: “the predator, that is the wolf, stands upstream from the lamb. And invents the pretext that by drinking it is dirtying the water, as justification for its aggression.”
“In any case, I don’t want to stir controversy,” he concluded, quoting Ezra Pound: “Venice is the city of poets, a city with terraces the color of stars!”
Buttafuoco also wanted to remember director Tinto Brass, whose fully restored 1967 film “Col cuore in gola” will be screened on September 1st.
The floor then passed to the “deus ex machina” of the film festival, director Alberto Barbera. In his opening remarks, he said that around four thousand five hundred works — features and shorts — were submitted for consideration for “Venezia83”. In the end, about a hundred films will be shown at Venice across the various sections (competition, out of competition, Biennale College Cinema, Venice Spotlight, Orizzonti, Special Screening — this section featuring a single film, “Dai nostri inviati. La Rai racconta la mostra del cinema dal 2001 al 2012”). VeniceOpen out-of-competition shorts, VeniceOpen out-of-competition Film on Films, VeniceOpen out-of-competition non-fiction, VeniceOpen out-of-competition fiction (including “Dio ride” by Giovanni Veronesi, which will close the Festival). And of course Venezia83 in competition, the section awarding the most coveted prizes.
Unlike Cannes, where not a single Italian film was present, Venice will feature quite a few — five in the competition section alone, plus others out of competition and in the very interesting Orizzonti section, with high-profile directors and actors.
The Honorary Golden Lion will go to American actor and director George Clooney, and to American actress Ellen Burstyn, ninety-three, famous for playing the mother in The Exorcist. She will also be at the Lido in a dual role, starring in the short film “Flash Impact,” in which she plays an unexpected Marilyn Monroe.
The opening film will be “Ink” by British director Danny Boyle, followed by the other nineteen competition films: “Company” by Casey Affleck, “Kami Nour” by Ali Asgari, “Ritorno a Buenos Aires” by Marco Bechis (returning to territory he explored in his earlier “Garage Olimpo”), “Un bon petit soldat” by Stéphane Brizé, “Il fuoco che ti porti dentro” by Edoardo De Angelis, “Kvinde Ukendt” by May el-Toukhy, “Bucking Fastard” by Werner Herzog, “15/18” by Cédric Kahn, “Dau” by Ilya Khrzhanovsky, “Look Back” by Hirokazu Koreeda, “Ga-Neung-han Sa-Rang” by Lee Chang-dong, “Wild Horse Nine” by Martin McDonagh, “L’estranea” by Paolo Strippoli, “Nelson San Anata Ha Hito Wo Koroshimashitaka?” by Shinya Tsukamoto, “Bunker” by Florian Zeller.
“Succederà questa notte” by Nanni Moretti — a welcome return for Moretti, who took part in 1981 with “Sogni d’oro,” winning the Silver Lion (that year’s Golden Lion went to Margarethe von Trotta for “Anni di piombo”), and returned in 1989 with “Palombella rossa,” which was excluded by the festival’s then-director, Guglielmo Biraghi, because the film dealt with the existential crisis of an Italian Communist Party official and the loss of identity of the left just months before the fall of the Berlin Wall — deemed for this reason an “inconvenient” work — “Primetime” by Lance Oppenheim, “The Echo Chamber” by Andrea Pallaoro, “Un peu avant minuit” by Nicolas Pariser.
This is the list of works in competition83, but as Alberto Barbera pointed out, other sections also feature very important films (the director let slip a few mini spoilers): “Dio ride” by Giovanni Veronesi, closing the festival; “Nessun dolore” by Gianni Amelio; “Scherzetto” by Mario Martone; “The Basic of Philosophy” by Paul Schrader; “Jupiter” by Alexander Smia. In the out-of-competition non-fiction section, Wim Wenders stands out with “From Inside Out – The Architecture of Peter Zumthor,” alongside “Biografía de Jorge Luis Borges” by Mariano Llinás. Also present: Russell Crowe with “What Love Builds,” and Francesco Carrozzini with “Be Brave.”
A look at the “Orizzonti” section, where we find “La ragazza con la Leica” by Alina Marazzi, “Una storia” by Anna Foglietta starring Alba Rohrwacher, “La città dei vivi” by Edoardo Gabbriellini, “I figli della scimmia” by Tommaso Landucci, “Oase” by Jannis Lenz, “La moula” by Jérôme Pierrat. In the Venice Open out-of-competition section, “Joie de vivre” by Luca Guadagnino stands out — a seven-hour film centered on the figure of the great master Bernardo Bertolucci. In closing, president Pietrangelo Buttafuoco briefly took the floor again to wish Italian President Sergio Mattarella a happy 85th birthday.
Photos by our photographer Barbara Pigazzi, exclusive for éNordEst, all rights reserved to the publication.
Original article: enordest.it — by Valter Esposito
Barbara Pigazzi has been the official staff photographer for the national publication éNordEst since July 2026.
In 2022, éNordEst published an interview with Barbara Pigazzi by journalist Antonella Benanzato: “Pigazzi’s reflection is mirrored in the lagoon”, on the “Animica” photographic project presented at MIA – Milano Image Art Fair.
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