Venice International Film Festival 2025 - Lido light, cinema in focus
As the end of summer approaches, the light begins to shift, Venice’s Mostra takes its measured place on the Lido - the 82nd edition, directed by Alberto Barbera, set between the clean lines of the Palazzo del Cinema and the Adriatic’s pale light. The dates are fixed and official; the setting is unchanged - a festival that privileges craft over spectacle. Venice Film Festival has long stood as a benchmark of excellence, Italy has shaped not only film history but also global imagination. Today, the legacy continues with directors who carry forward this tradition of visual precision and narrative, rooted in a culture where storytelling is both craft and heritage. Italian film remains distinguished by its elegance of form, emotional clarity, and the ability to capture the extraordinary within the everyday.
Arrivals at the Venice Film Festival are a choreographed scene in themselves, unfolding with the quiet spectacle. Guests approach by boat across the lagoon, the city’s pale light reflecting off the water as polished mahogany taxis glide toward the dock. Unlike other festivals where arrival is theatre for its own sake, Venice frames each entrance with a sense of intention and poise — a reminder that how one arrives, in Venice and in life, shapes perception, sets the tone, and honors the moment. Here, cinema and setting are inseparable, and the act of arrival becomes a ritual in both art and everyday experience. It is a useful reminder that when the context is strong, you don’t shout.
The programme has range but a clear centre. Core strands run from Competition to Orizzonti and the newer Venezia Spotlight, alongside special screenings and curated conversations that value method as much as myth. Venice Immersive continues as a serious track, broad in geography and form. Venice Classics treats memory like material.
The section brings restorations and documentary portraits into focus, letting a mid‑century masterwork or a rediscovered genre piece read tomorrow‑new because the repair is exact. It is not nostalgia; it is the craft of preservation made visible, curated with restraint and care.
This year opens with Paolo Sorrentino’s La Grazia. American filmmaker Alexander Payne presides over the main Competition jury, while Emanuela Fanelli hosts the opening and closing nights. Two Golden Lions for Lifetime Achievement set the tone - Werner Herzog and Kim Novak - honours given without sentimentality, in Venice’s preferred register of calm confidence.
Dress the days with the same discipline. Midday heat asks for linens - breathable, precise, unshowy. Evenings bring a breeze off the water; a soft-shouldered jacket in double cashmere earns its space. Colours work when they borrow from the city - Istrian stone, terracotta, lagoon blue. Bags stay light; shoes read marble and teak.
Move early, travel simply, and let the city narrow your choices - show up: relaxed, refined.
Define your signature.
