The Venice Film Festival opened on Wednesday with Paolo Sorrentino’s La Grazia, preceded by a Lifetime Achievement Award for Werner Herzog accompanied by a tribute speech from Francis Ford Coppola for the German filmmaker.
Sorrentino’s 11th feature, La Grazia reunites the Italian director with long-time collaborator Toni Servillo, star of his 2014 Oscar-winning movie La Grande Bellezza.
The film, the storyline of which was kept under wraps until the world premiere, stars Servillo as a respected Italian president facing three key decisions – around an euthanasia bill and pardons for convicted killers – as his term in power comes to end.
“It’s a love story about family, law, high politics and taking responsibility,” Sorrentino told commentators on the red carpet as he entered the Palazzo del Cinema.
Prior to the screening, Herzog received the festival’s Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement from Coppola.
The 82-year-old German documentarian beamed as a tribute reel of work screened and Coppola came onto the stage to loud applause
Coppola talked warmly of Herzog who he has known for close to 50 years, hosting the director in California as he grappled with the fallout of difficult production of 1982 film Fitzcarraldo.
“I come here with praise for Werner Herzog. One must celebrate the fact that someone like [Werner], he can actually exist. Werner emerges as an unlimited phenomenon working in every nook and corner of cimema,” said Coppola.
“His work burst into into my life with The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser,” continued Coppola, referring to the director’s 1974 film, and then name checking other works such as Aguirre, The Wrath of God (1972) and Stroszek (1977).
“I had never seen such films as these all unique and very different from one another and all magnificent,” he added.
Werner professed his love of the Venice Film Festival where he has showen films such as Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans and My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done which both played in competition in 2009 as well as The Wild Blue Yonder, Invincible and Scream of Stone.
“It feels odd now I have winged lion,” said Herzog. “In a way I had a feeling before I came here of being the elephant in the room for such a long time…. so perhaps it was deserved… and I haven’t come empty handed because tomorrow I will show my new film,” he said.
Herzog’s new documentary Ghost Elephants, about the search for a mysterious herd of elephants reportedly living in in the highlands of Angola, will play of Out of Competition on Thursday followed by masterclass by the director.
