There is a moment that happens every time I am lucky enough to attend the Venice International Film Festival, just before it all begins, when overloaded screening schedules still seem perfectly doable, and deadlines are distant and abstract, almost pretty, like far-off flocks of birds. Regular attendees know to be slightly conspiratorial about Venice, to keep a little of its magic secret in case the universe realizes there’s been a clerical error and it gets taken away from us. Because even in a normal year — and who knows if we will ever have one of those again? — this festival is a rare privilege that surely no one really deserves. But then this year, the festival’s 78th, right from the start, the darkness was full of life.

Source: International New York Times September 12, 2021 19:41 UTC