Universal Cinema is honored to present an exclusive interview with Alberto Barbera, the esteemed Artistic Director of the Venice Film Festival. Recently reappointed for the 2025 and 2026 editions, Barbera has been a pivotal figure in shaping the festival’s prestigious profile since his return in 2012. Under his leadership, the Venice Film Festival has maintained its status as a cornerstone of global cinema, navigating the ever-evolving landscape of film technology and market dynamics.
In this interview, Barbera shares his vision for the upcoming years, his approach to film selection, and his thoughts on the challenges and opportunities facing film festivals today. From the delicate balance of artistic freedom and political demands to the impact of digital platforms on traditional festivals, Barbera provides insightful reflections on the future of cinema. He also addresses the controversies surrounding his bold decisions regarding filmmakers facing cancelation and the importance of artistic quality over political correctness in film programming.
Join us as we delve into the mind of one of the most influential figures in the film festival circuit, exploring the principles and philosophies that continue to guide the Venice Film Festival to new heights.
Amir Ganjavie, UniversalCinema Magazine (UM): Congratulations on your recent reappointment as Artistic Director for 2025 and 2026. What are your main goals and vision for these upcoming years?
Alberto Barbara (AB): Thank you. I am very happy to be able to keep on working on the project for the Venice Film Festival that began to take shape in 2012, at the time of my return to Venice after my first experience ended in 2001, after my first three years as artistic director. In the meantime, many things changed, and many improvements have been made to reshape the profile of the festival and put it back on the map as one of the most important and effective events in the world festival circuits. In the next few years, I do not plan to introduce changes in the structure of the festival: my main concern is and will remain to stay tuned with the frequent, continuous, and unexpected transformation in the film world, under the pressure of the new technologies and the progressive market shifts toward unprecedented and always unstable equilibria.
(UM): How do you approach the film selection process at the Venice Film Festival? What key qualities do you look for in a film?
(AB): Every year, more than 2000 feature films and around 1700 shorts are submitted to the festival. The selection process is an ongoing work that starts in December already and continues unabated until mid-July. The main commitment is to see all the films that are proposed to us, without exception, seeking a balance between works by celebrated authors, expected titles, the enhancement of directors already known but not yet fully established, and the discovery of new talents to be proposed to the attention of critics and viewers from all over the world. The selection criteria favor original, personal films, capable of revealing the director’s vision even when it is masked behind genre film codes. And, more generally still, capable of establishing a dialogue with an audience, even while searching for new languages and modes of expression.
(UM): Who makes the final decision about the selection process in Venice? Is it you or a team of programmers?
(AB): I work with a group of critics and colleagues, made up of 15 people. Some of them are specialists from different areas of the world (Latin America, Africa, Southeast Asia, and China), and others have a generalist approach, but we try to share the vision of most films. I make the final decision, however, taking responsibility for a choice, especially in the case of controversy and non-unanimous judgments.
(UM): Many festivals are becoming similar, lacking a unique signature and often following the political demands of the time (usually left politics), such as curating more diverse and political films. Even the Oscars seem to be following these trends. What are your thoughts on this? What makes the Venice Film Festival stand out in this increasingly homogeneous landscape?
(AB): I confess to being quite suspicious of the general tendency to apply in a systematic and unreasoned manner seemingly objective criteria that respond to major contemporary issues, such as gender equality, valuing minorities, and respecting quotas that correspond to a politically correct approach. I think that the main criteria for the basis of a festival’s programming should be first and foremost the artistic quality of a film. I think I have applied this principle quite rigorously over the past few editions of the festival, even attracting quite a bit of criticism, for example, for neglecting the principle of 50 percent of films directed by men and women. Festival programming is the last link in a decision-making chain that precedes us and begins the very moment a project is proposed for a producer’s attention. World statistics tell us that even today the average number of films directed by women is less than 30 percent of all films. How can a festival director be asked to remedy this distortion by programming at least half of films by women, if not by giving up the first and most important criterion, which is that of artistic quality?
(UM): You are one of the few who have made bold decisions regarding filmmakers facing cancelation, where judgment is suspended pending an eventual guilty verdict. Do you have any personal limits or boundaries in defining these decisions?
(AB): The heaviest accusations were made against me for inviting to the festival filmmakers accused of unacceptable or improper sexual behavior. I always reply that the task of making a judgment is up to the judiciary, not festival directors, not to mention that none of them has ever been convicted. The only exception is Roman Polanski, and that is for the reasons I have repeatedly tried to explain. I think that from the point of a programmer, a distinction has to be made between the man and his work of art. The film comes before the man who made it, for which judgment must be suspended pending the possible guilty verdict. And even in this case, we cannot avoid asking ourselves what attitude we should take toward so many artists of the past (one name above all: Caravaggio) who have been guilty of even more serious faults.
(UM): Do you have any specific quotas or guidelines in place when selecting films?
(AB): I abhor the word quotas when applied in the arts, so I do not use them in any case.
(UM): How has your experience been in curating films by women? What challenges have you discovered in the process?
(AB): You know what? I have said many times that ideally, the selection process should take place ‘in the dark,’ as one does by tasting different wines to establish a ranking of the best without knowing the name of the producer. This is how it should be done in choosing films not to be influenced by the director’s name, his gender, or the prestige of his producer. Consequently, the main challenge is to evaluate solely the value of the film itself, regardless of whether a woman or a man directed it. A female director once told me that she would be offended if her film was not valued in the same way as that of her male colleague. I think she is right.
(UM): There are more works by female filmmakers in festivals, but most are from a few countries like France. What is your experience with this, and how do you think a festival can address this? Do you agree with Thierry Frémaux that this is an issue for film schools to address rather than festivals?
(AB): Thierry Fremaux is right. The problem lies upstream from the moment a film is finished and sent to a festival for selection. It is much earlier that action needs to be taken, for example, changing the criteria for admission to film schools, and convincing producers to overcome the prejudices they still have against women. Again: allowing more women to become producers: then they would surely have a more helpful attitude toward women directors. Underlying this problem is another one: the low proportion of women in all apex roles in our societies, even in the most developed ones.
(UM): I’ve noticed more festivals are appointing selection committees composed of a majority of female judges to correct past injustices against female artists. However, I’ve heard some negative feedback from male filmmakers who view this as a form of injustice. Some have mentioned that being a female artist today makes it easier to gain recognition. How do you balance equality and fairness in your festival?
(AB): I think that faced with the problem of the underrepresentation of women in the artistic world in general, and in the film world in particular, the first effort that must be made is to make the selection commissions and working groups of a festival more representative. Without going to the extreme of having a majority of women, which would result in a reversal of the past capable of generating new reverse discrimination. But greater balance is a fair result to strive for, and easily achieved, even if that does not necessarily mean having a more condescending attitude toward women artists.
(UM): Some festivals struggle to maintain a permanent team of film curators, often relying on only a few permanent staff members. This has been a source of frustration for many programmers I’ve spoken with. What is the situation at the Venice Film Festival regarding permanent film curators?
(AB): In the past, the policy of the Venice Film Festival was not to exceed (except in exceptional cases) the director’s term of office, which was four years, to ensure continuous turnover. The consequence was that each new director also meant renewing the programming team. Personally, I am convinced, on the other hand, that a certain amount of continuity is indispensable to give strength to a director’s artistic project, allowing him or her to progressively improve, to strengthen relationships with the film world, and to consolidate the results achieved thanks to the trust and esteem gained over time. A festival cannot afford to constantly change its director, and thus its planning, at the expense of its own credibility. A mediocre director can cause damage to a festival’s image, which would take years to restore.
(UM): Securing venues is a big challenge for many festivals. How is the situation in Venice?
(AB): We are fortunate because we can count on permanent venues dedicated to the Venice festival, which has existed since the 1930s. Numerous other theaters have been added to the original facilities over the past few years, constituting a legacy of venues destined to remain and to be renewed from year to year.
(UM): With the rise of digital platforms and changing viewing habits, how do you see the future of traditional film festivals evolving?
(AB): A few years ago, with the advent of platforms, not a few commentators predicted a gradual loss of importance for the role and function of festivals. Paradoxically, the opposite is occurring instead: today, festivals appear to be increasingly useful and necessary for the promotion of films, both for platforms wishing to enhance their investments in high-end products, and for the theatrical circuit, which suffers greatly from competition from platforms and thus desperately needs to feed the desire for cinema, especially among the younger generation. The future is not easily foreseeable, but I do not believe that the importance of festivals is likely to decline in the coming years, given also the success they are achieving and the growing number of spectators, especially the young and very young, who attend them.
(UM): Is it easy for you to secure films from big platforms like Netflix or Amazon? Some festival directors have told me that big platforms don’t really care or appreciate festivals as they have other methods of marketing. What is your experience with this?
(AB): This is not our case. The Venice Film Festival has a very good relationship with Netflix, Amazon, Apple, and other platforms. Partly because we were the first to open the main competition to films produced by streamers since 2014, and then because Venice is among the biggest festivals in the world able to offer the opportunity for very effective promotion thanks to the presence of the most important newspapers and media internationally.
(UM): How do you balance artistic freedom of expression with political demands? Several Iranian and Russian filmmakers have mentioned to me that it’s challenging to get into a major festival these days without making a political movie, which they view as another form of injustice. Are you specifically looking for bold and politically charged films from countries with troubled regimes?
(AB): No. As I said before, we do not have any political agenda behind our selection process. Our guidelines are based on the artistic values of the films solely.
(UM): What advice would you give to aspiring filmmakers who hope to have their work featured in major film festivals?
(AB): Make a good and original film, strong enough to rival the best films being produced today.
© 2020-2024. UniversalCinema Mag.