Venice, September 13 (askanews) – The Silver Lion – Award for Best Director at the 83rd Venice International Film Festival went to Russian dissident director Ilya Khrzhanovsky for his film “Dau,” a title inspired by the story of the physicists who built the Soviet atomic bomb. Khrzhanovsky was contested by Ukrainian authorities for his participation in the festival due to political and funding issues.
The director himself dismissed the controversy, stating repeatedly that he stands with Kiev and even dedicated the Venice award to it. After the closing ceremony, Khrzhanovsky added: "On this day, I can't just be happy, because, of course, I think about the place where the film was shot, Kharkiv, Ukraine, the terrible war there, the people suffering there, and the bombed-out places where we filmed, and also about the entire world situation, the idea of a possible nuclear war, something absolutely unimaginable for decades…
And now the past, the totalitarian past, is once again becoming part of the danger, part of the danger in many countries, and there is the danger of the destruction of the entire world." And on the reception of the film, a huge project that began over twenty years on a gigantic set isolated from the world with hundreds of actors and ordinary people participating, he said: "I think for this film, the reception was somewhat dual.
People can love it or hate it, and both reactions are fantastic to me. Because I think it's important to understand that art can't change the world, but it can touch something in human emotions."
Notizie.it editorial team