Venice Diary #03 - D-Day: Diana, Dune and a huge hole in the ground

by Elisa Giudici
Today Venice lived its climax, with screenings of two of the most awaited movies of the entire year: Pablo Larraín's Spencer and Denis Villeneuve's Dune. The latter in particular is perceived by everyone as an event, even by Venice standards (where a lot of the protagonists of the last Oscar races have been premiered). The fight for tickets to the screenings was merciless. Every show sold out in a matter of seconds and the artistic director of the Festival, Alberto Barbera, tried to answer the general audience and press's complaints with multiple tweets. Moreover, it is the first movie in the five years I've been attending in which every ticket holder is required to seal his phone in a bag for piracy prevention. Warner Bros faces more than a calculated risk here: Dune's box office can be the dividing line between the cinema experience as we used to know and something new and yet uncertain...