The Wizard of the Kremlin
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Ides of March: The 2025 Venice Film Festival
On the evening of August 8, 1939, Hitler’s Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels led a fleet of gondolas down the Canal Grande. He’d been invited to attend the opening of the seventh Venice Film Festival, which began in a lugubrious atmosphere. The specter of a new world conflict was haunting Europe; critics dispatching from the Lido wrote of an “empty” Venice, “long-faced people,” “little dancing” and “lots of play to chase away negative thoughts.” Back then, the festival functioned as a sort of political summit; the Biennale invited delegations from different countries, which would submit the films themselves. Sixteen nations took […]
by Leonardo Goi on Sep 15, 2025 -
TIFF 2025: Wake Up Dead Man, The Wizard of the Kremlin
The lights went down precisely at 6 pm, the designated starting hour for Rian Johnson’s Wake Up Dead Man, and people began murmuring in pleasant surprise: at premium TIFF screenings where a starry cast is the main attraction, kick-off time is understood to be more of a loose suggestion than an actuality you can make plans around. Director of Programming and Platform Lead Robyn Citizen briskly thanked the sponsors and brought out Johnson; he worked the room and had his intro done in 2.5 minutes. (Rian Johnson is a wise man.) The sponsor bumpers started at 6:05; “A TIFF miracle!” […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 12, 2025
