ベネチア映画祭開幕　ウクライナ大統領がメッセージ

【ベネチアＡＦＰ＝時事】第７９回ベネチア国際映画祭が８月３１日、開幕した。今年は米俳優のジュリアン・ムーアが審査員長を務める。（写真はオープニングセレモニーでスクリーンに映し出されたウクライナのウォロディミル・ゼレンスキー大統領）
　イタリア・ベネチアのリド島で行われる映画祭のオープニングセレモニーには、ウクライナのウォロディミル・ゼレンスキー大統領がビデオメッセージで登場し、ロシアによる侵攻を「１２０分ではなく、１８９日間続く恐怖」と表現。侵攻によって死亡したウクライナの子ども３５８人の名前がスクリーンに映し出される中、「沈黙せず、恐れないでほしい」と述べ、「ウクライナの戦争に中立でいることはできない」と呼び掛けた。
　レッドカーペットには、ヒラリー・クリントン元米国務長官の姿も見られた。
　フランスを代表する俳優カトリーヌ・ドヌーヴ（７８）は、生涯功労賞の栄誉金獅子賞を受賞。今も撮影にいそしむ毎日だと語り、フォトコールにはウクライナの国旗をあしらった服で臨んだ。
　オープニングを飾ったのは、ノア・バームバック監督、米俳優アダム・ドライヴァー主演の『ホワイト・ノイズ』。米動画配信大手ネットフリックス作品としては、同作を含め計４本が最高賞の金獅子賞に挑む。
　コンペティション部門には他に、ダーレン・アロノフスキー監督の『Ｔｈｅ　Ｗｈａｌｅ（原題）』、アレハンドロ・ゴンサレス・イニャリトゥ監督の『バルド、偽りの記録と一握りの真実』、深田晃司監督の『ＬＯＶＥ　ＬＩＦＥ』など計２３作品が出品されている。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2022/09/02-11:36）

The Venice Film Festival kicked off on Wednesday with a powerful message from Ukraine's president and a topical opening film starring Adam Driver about a deadly health crisis and misinformation.
President Volodymyr Zelensky sent a recorded message for the opening ceremony on the Lido island, telling the audience: not to remain silent, not to be afraid... not to remain neutral to the war in Ukraine.
He described it as a horror which is not 120 minutes but 189 days long, and followed his speech with a list of 358 names of children killed since the Russian invasion.
The world's longest-running film festival is marking 90 years since its first edition, and saw celebrities including US politician Hillary Clinton walking the red carpet.
Opening film White Noise is the first of four Netflix-produced films competing for the top prize Golden Lion as the streamer seeks to bolster its artistic credentials.
It stars Driver as a Hitler studies professor in a small college town, which experiences an Airborne Toxic Event that leaves the community desperate for reliable information -- while his wife (played by Greta Gerwig) has her own struggles with prescription meds.
A sharp and funny satire of US consumer culture and academic navel-gazing, it reunites Driver with director Noah Baumbach following their lauded Marriage Story.
Though based on a famous Don DeLillo novel from 1985, Baumbach told reporters he couldn't believe how relevant it felt when he re-read it in 2020.
Driver joked that he got carried away fattening up to play a middle-aged dad: I put on weight and we had a back-up stomach -- and then we didn't need the back-up stomach.
- Not looking backwards -
La Mostra, as the festival is known, takes place each year on the beach-lined Lido island and is well-timed to launch Academy Award campaigns.
Eight of the last 10 Best Director Oscars have gone to films that premiered at Venice, including the most recent winner Jane Campion for Power of the Dog -- another Netflix production.
Also gracing the Lido on Wednesday was French actress Catherine Deneuve, who wore a Ukrainian flag pinned to her jacket as she arrived to pick up a lifetime achievement award.
An icon in France since the 1960s, the notoriously frank Deneuve seemed non-plussed by the accolade.
One doesn't look backwards, the 78-year-old told AFP. It's not a refusal, it's just that one doesn't have time. I was filming in Paris a few weeks ago and starting a film in English in Belgium in less than a month.
- Cannibals and whales -
Hollywood and Western Europe dominate the selection of 23 films competing over the next 10 days for the hearts of a jury led by US actress Julianne Moore.
Fans of Timothee Chalamet are ravenous for his new road movie Bones and All, premiering Friday, in which he plays a love-lorn cannibal -- reuniting him with Call Me By Your Name director Luca Guadagnino.
There is early buzz, too, for The Whale starring Brendan Fraser as a morbidly obese man trying to reconnect with his daughter, directed by Darren Aronofsky who won the Golden Lion in 2008 for The Wrestler.
Still hunting its first Best Picture Oscar, Netflix has become a key backer of more intellectual directors as traditional Hollywood studios fixate on superhero and franchise blockbusters.
Later in the festival, the streamer is premiering the highly anticipated Blonde, a dark retelling of Marilyn Monroe's tragic life, with rising star Ana de Armas in the lead role.
It is also behind Bardo, the latest from Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, who launched his previous films Birdman and The Revenant in Venice on their way to Oscar glory.
But the movie most likely to get tongues wagging is Don't Worry Darling, playing out of competition on Monday, which features music megastar Harry Styles in his first leading role, directed by his girlfriend Olivia Wilde.