The 29th annual Venice International Film Festival was held from 25 August to 7 September 1968.[1]
The May 1968 events in France had serious repercussions on this festival. Five days before the festival was to be held, directors of the Italian filmmakers association ANAC, for both political and cultural reasons, withdrew their films from the competition. The Communist Party and the Socialist Party of Proletarian Unity were in favor of the boycott. Some directors, however, defected from this decision and Roberto Rossellini, Liliana Cavani, Bernardo Bertolucci and Nelo Risi decided to project their films. Pier Paolo Pasolini initially refused to participate at the festival, but finally his film entered in Competition.[2][3]
During the inauguration day, the police had occupied the Palazzo del Cinema del Lido. The inauguration ceremony was skipped and a decision was taken to go ahead with the festival in a self-managed way, with the director of the festival, Chiarini, as chairman. The next day the police intervened and the meetings were canceled. Finally the competition started on the evening of 27 August, while demonstrations against "the fascist and bourgeois exhibition" were taking place outside the Palazzo.[2]
Jury
- Guido Piovene, Italian writer and journalist - Jury President[4]
- Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, French actor and filmmaker
- Akira Iwasaki, Japanese producer and film critic
- Roger Manvell, British author and filmmaker
- István Nemeskürty, Hungarian screenwriter and producer
- Vicente Antonio Pineda, Spanish
- Edgar Reitz, West-German director and producer
Official Selections
The following films were selected to be screened:[5]
In Competition
| English title | Original title | Director(s) | Production country |
|---|---|---|---|
| After the Deluge | Después del diluvio | Jacinto Esteva | Spain |
| Artists Under the Big Top: Perplexed | Die Artisten in der Zirkuskuppel: Ratlos | Alexander Kluge | West Germany |
| Ballad for a Dog | Ballade pour un chien | Gérard Vergez | France |
| The Castle | Das Schloß | Rudolf Noelte | West Germany |
| The Deserters and the Nomads | Zbehovia a pútnici | Juraj Jakubisko | Czechoslovakia |
| Diary of a Schizophrenic Girl | Diario di una schizofrenica | Nelo Risi | Italy |
| Faces | John Cassavetes | United States | |
| Falak | András Kovács | Hungary | |
| Fire! | Fuoco! | Gian Vittorio Baldi | Italy |
| Galileo | Liliana Cavani | Italy | |
| Kierion | Dimosthenis Theos | Greece | |
| Me and My Brother | Robert Frank | United States | |
| Monterey Pop | D. A. Pennebaker | United States | |
| Naked Childhood | L'Enfance nue | Maurice Pialat | France |
| Noon | Podne | Mladomir Puriša Đorđević | Yugoslavia |
| Our Lady of the Turks | Nostra Signora dei Turchi | Carmelo Bene | Italy |
| Partner | Bernardo Bertolucci | Italy | |
| Seven Days Somewhere Else | Sept jours ailleurs | Marin Karmitz | France |
| Silence and Cry | Csend és kiáltás | Miklós Jancsó | Hungary |
| Socrates | Le Socrate | Robert Lapoujade | France |
| Spray of the Days | L'Écume des jours | Charles Belmont | France |
| Stress Is Three | Stress es tres, tres | Carlos Saura | Spain |
| Summit | Giorgio Bontempi | Italy | |
| Tell Me Lies | Peter Brook | United Kingdom | |
| Teorema | Pier Paolo Pasolini | Italy | |
| Wheel of Ashes | Peter Emmanuel Goldman | United States | |
| Wild in the Streets | Barry Shears | United States | |
Out of Competition
| English title | Original title | Director(s) | Production country |
|---|---|---|---|
| A Report on the Party and the Guests | O slavnosti a hostech | Jan Nemec | Czechoslovakia |
| Sul davanti fioriva una magnolia | Paolo Breccia | Italy | |
Informativa
| English title | Original title | Director(s) | Production country |
|---|---|---|---|
| Het compromis | Philo Bregstein | Netherlands | |
| Mandabi | Le Mandat | Ousmane Sembène | France, Senegal |
Official Awards
Main Competition
- Golden Lion: Artists Under the Big Top: Perplexed by Alexander Kluge
- Special Jury Prize:
- Our Lady of the Turks by Carmelo Bene
- Le Socrate by Robert Lapoujade
- Mandabi by Ousmane Sembène[6][7][8]
- Volpi Cup for Best Actor: John Marley for Faces
- Volpi Cup for Best Actress: Laura Betti for Teorema
- Honorable Mention: Kierion by Dimos Theos
Pasinetti Award
- Best Film: Faces by John Cassavetes
References
- ↑ "The 1960s". Retrieved October 7, 2013.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link) - 1 2 "Mostra del cinema di Venecia, anni '60". Giorgio dell'Arti (in Italian). Archived from the original on 1 April 2018. Retrieved 31 March 2018.
- ↑ Guider, Elizabeth (September 4, 2005). "Protests at '68 Venice fest got a reality Czech". Variety. Retrieved April 22, 2020.
- ↑ "Juries for the 1960s". Retrieved October 7, 2013.
- ↑ "29. Mostra Internazionale del Cinema". labiennale.org. Retrieved 15 June 2025.
- ↑ Gadjigo, Samba (April 11, 2007). "Ousmane Sembène: une conscience africaine : genèse d'un destin hors du commun". Homnisphères – via Google Books.
- ↑ "Hommage à Patrick G. Ilboudo". Regard. April 11, 1995 – via Google Books.
- ↑ Bory, Jean-Louis; Cluny, Claude Michel (April 11, 1972). "Dossiers du cinéma: Cinéastes". Casterman – via Google Books.