Venice Boss Alberto Barbera on Comforting Lady Gaga, A Tearful Tom Cruise and the “Crazy Strokes of Luck” That Landed Him the Lido Gig

Alberto Barbera is the longest-serving director of the Venice Film Festival. Counting this year’s event, which kicks off August 30, Barbera will have racked up 15 years at the helm. After a short, three-year stint from 1999-2001, Barbera returned in 2011, beginning what many consider the festival’s new golden age. Under his guidance, Venice has become a springboard for the Oscars (Gravity, Birdman, La La Land, The Shape of Water) and a launchpad for studio blockbusters (Joker, Dune).

His current term is up next year, but when asked if he would sign up again, Barbera just laughs. “Do you think if they offered it to me I would say no? It’s an offer you can’t refuse.”

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Every sentence out of Barbera’s mouth seems to contain a film quote. But he came to cinema almost by accident. Unhappy with his job as a substitute teacher in middle school, he jumped at the chance when a friend from the Turin newspaper the Gazzetta del Popolo called, asking if he’d be interested to write for them about movies. One opportunity followed another, until he finally landed at his dream job as head of Venice Biennale.

Ahead of this year’s event, the 80th anniversary, Barbera spoke with THR Roma‘s editor-in-chief Concita De Gregorio about his favorite memories from a decade-and-a-half on the Lido.

Let’s start back in the mid-1950s, in the small municipal cinema in Occhieppo Inferiore, the town of three thousand inhabitants in the province of Biella, Piedmont, where you grew up. You are four years old and your parents leave you in the cinema for the afternoon. It was your first time at the movies. Do you remember the film?

No. I know that I got very frightened by a tense scene. The fascination of fear was so strong that I asked to come back. And to come back again. The first film I remember is Chaplin’s Modern Times. I must have been six years old. Then lots of Laurel and Hardy, Charlie Chaplin, shorts galore. Finally, an amazing thing happened. I saw a war movie with an ending that haunted me for years but I could never tell what movie it was. Not long ago, almost seventy years later, I bought an old The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954) VHS tape and put it on one night at home. That was it! It was very exciting.

When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

An actor. Then I realized that the director was more important so I thought I’ll be the director. I wanted to go to the Centro Sperimentale (Italian film school) in Rome, but my father said, ‘No way. Study first.’ So I graduated. Then I was in the Alpine Corps, then a substitute teacher, then I had a series of crazy strokes of luck. Marco Vallora had left the [Italian newspaper] Gazzetta, and asked me if I wanted to write about cinema. I was a critic for two wonderful years. Finally, Rondolino, who had been my professor at the University, asked me if I wanted to help out at the Turin Film Festival. I did everything. I learned how to keep accounts, how to read budgets. I did the press office and served as the organizing secretary. Nobody teaches you how to be a festival director. When by good fortune it touches you, as it did me, you learn from your mistakes.

And you started with a pretty colossal mistake, didn’t you?

Well, the Cassa di Risparmio di Torino foundation was giving us a sponsorship of 200 million lire, almost half of our budget. I forgot to invite the executives to the final evening. They took great offense. We were in danger of losing the sponsor. I think they weren’t there the next year, but that might be a false memory.

Did you have to make many compromises, political and economic, on your way up?

Look, I was lucky. I can say no. When I was first offered the position at the Biennale, I didn’t even want to accept. It had a reputation of being an unmanageable machine, it was a government body that depended on the culture ministry. But in 1998, it became a foundation, a private entity. My first term was in ’99. We inaugurated, with Paolo Baratta, a new and magnificent season. Then, in 2001 we were all kicked out. With Silvio Berlusconi as the new Italian President and Giuliano Urbani as minister of culture, they tried to bring the festival back under the control of the ministry. They didn’t succeed.

This is what just happened with the Centro Sperimentale in Rome – eliminating the Foundation and bringing the institution back under the appointment and control of the ministries.

It’s a return to the past, to a very ugly time. Cultural and educational institutions must be taken away from politics. In the interest of everyone.

How is the Biennale doing financially?

It’s very healthy. Removed from ministerial pressure, it has grown enormously. It has been led by people of great stature with an international vision, who have put investments first. We started again, in 2012, to restore our structures: the buildings, the halls. Today the Arsenale is one of the most beautiful art venues in the world. Great credit must be given to Paolo Baratta [President of the Biennale]. He did a lot of good for everyone.

2012 wasn’t a good time for the Mostra. It was in decline.

Yes. Toronto and Telluride were held concurrently and they’d gotten bigger. Toronto had become the gateway to US cinema. It cost less, it worked. We had dilapidated structures, so we started from there, tidying up the rooms, the screens, and the projection techniques. Made it more welcoming. Then we had to rebuild our relationship with the Americans, not to be culturally subordinate to them but because we knew, if they come, the others will come too.

How did you pull it off with the Americans, what was the turning point?

It was the second year, with Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity. Warner offered it to us, they didn’t really believe in it. But it was magnificent. We opened with it. Months later it won him an Oscar [for best director]. Then it was the turn of Alejandro Inarritu’s Birdman, the next year, it won the Oscar [for best picture]. The majors became convinced that Venice was a springboard to the Oscars. From there on it was up to us to select the right films, but it was never difficult. When you see La La Land, The Shape of Water it’s clear. A little expertise, a little flair, a lot of passion for cinema. That’s all it takes.

Was Challengers, which was set to open this year’s festival but got moved to next year because of the actors’ strike, your pick for this year’s Oscar film?

I would say yes. [Challengers director] Luca Guadagnino fought until the end for it to be here but the reasons for the strikes are more than legitimate. It’s a fair claim. For a film, to premiere in one year and compete for an Oscar two years later is a big risk. But it’s just the history of cinema, this tug-of-war between talent and the market. The “perfect formula,” as in David Thomson puts it in his magnificent book, does not exist. Talent needs resources. It is a delicate balance, a constant adjustment. A perennial and unresolved conflict. Workers’ rights, however, must be recognized and protected at all times.

Are there any other Oscar-bound films in this 80th edition?

At least five or six. Among the Italians we selected there are some very good, important films. There are very few masterpieces in the history of cinema. But it is decisive to make big production investments in talent. The Italian industry has understood that in order to be competitive on the world market it has to invest a lot. I think we’re at a turning point.

Tell me two great moments of your life as an artistic director, the ones you will tell your grandchildren about.

The first one was in 1999. I went to Los Angeles, to Warner Bros., to get a movie. They proposed Eyes Wide Shut. [Director Stanley] Kubrick wanted to come to Venice, they said. Then he died in May. Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman came. Bernardo Bertolucci read from the stage a magnificent memory of Kubrick, making a mea culpa about how he underestimated him as a director. Cruise and Kidman were crying on opening night. I was 49, feeling very young. Maybe I was. I was so excited.

And the second?

Lady Gaga wiping off the rain in my office. Bradley Cooper asked to go into the theater with her to greet the audience, in the two theaters where A Star is Born was being shown. It had never happened before that the actors went into the auditorium. She, used to performing in front of thousands of people, hesitated and was afraid. “It’s my first film,” she said. “Maybe I’m a really bad actor?” You should have heard the roar in the theater, actually in the two theaters because we entered the second one at the end credits. It was incredible. Security was on edge. I put my arm around her shoulders. She spoke a few words of Italian. I gave her courage. Me. To Lady Gaga.

Have you ever thought, in all these years, of making a film as a director?

Never. I would be a terrible director. It’s the hardest thing in the world, you have to have enormous talent. I don’t think I’m capable.

Don’t you think you are capable? That’s a phrase you rarely hear.

I’ve just learned, from the time of that Occhieppo cinema to today, to put myself at the service of other people’s talent. I am happy about that. Everyone in life has his own duty. That’s mine.

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