In a summer when oppressive heat has turned the Venice Lido into a sauna, the stars at the city’s annual film festival were as numerous as the droplets of sweat. Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Jude Law, Angelina Jolie, George and Brad, the list goes on… Interestingly, many A-listers were working in English-language productions by auteurs from Spain (Pedro Almodóvar), Italy (Luca Guadagnino), Chile (Pablo Larraín), Greece (Athina Rachel Tsangari), Mexico (Alfonso Cuarón)… It shows how much cinema’s mainstream is fuelled today by global voices, although it raises the question of where this leaves the world’s national cinemas once their biggest names move abroad.
One director who has returned to his national roots is Brazilian film-maker Walter Salles. Following Jack Kerouac adaptation On the Road, he evokes his country’s military dictatorship in I’m Still Here, about one family’s experience of government brutality in the early 70s. Masterfully executed, this no-frills real-life drama balances political and domestic registers to gripping, moving effect, and its lead, Fernanda Torres, is surely a cert for an acting award here.
