The only documentary feature in the running for the Golden Lion, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed is a portrait of artist photographer and activist Nan Goldin.
Posted at 8:00 a.m.
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed : the story of a life
Realized in a very classic way by Laura Poitras (Citizenfour), this film takes as its starting point the recent action of the activist to denounce the company Purdue Pharma, owned by the Sackler family, very involved in the art world, for the large-scale production of the drug OxyContin, then that she was aware of the highly addictive nature of this painkiller. By retracing the life and career of the artist, who lived his youth in the 1960s and 1970s, Poitras also draws a parallel between the fights of today and those of yesterday, the action of Nan Goldin being strongly inspired by that of the Act Up movement in the midst of the AIDS crisis more than 30 years ago. The subject is very interesting, and still as relevant, but it is difficult to see how this feature film could end up on the charts. An out-of-competition presentation might have been better suited.
Argentina, 1985 : as a duty of memory
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE VENICE MOSTRA
Ricardo Darín and Peter Lanzani in Argentina, 1985by Santiago Miter
Awarded at Locarno in 2011 (The student) and at Cannes in 2015 (Grand Prize of the Critics’ Week thanks to The potato), filmmaker Santiago Miter continues in the political vein of his previous film (the cordillera) to recreate on screen one of the most important episodes in Argentina’s recent history. Starring Ricardo Darín and Peter Lanzani, Argentina, 1985 is inspired by the true story of Julio Strassera and Luis Moreno Ocampo, the two prosecutors at the heart of the famous trial of 1985. The day after the fall of the dictatorship, very high-ranking soldiers were then brought to justice for the crimes committed while they were in power. A bit like Costa-Gavras, a bit also in the way we borrow in Italian cinema, Santiago Miter evokes this orchestrated fight in a still tense climate, while democratic institutions are still fragile. Selected in official competition, this Argentinian production from Amazon Studios will be released on the Prime Video platform on October 21.