WATCH: Venice Film Festival director Alberto Barbera unveils the line-up for this year's edition

Sponsor Mastercard and the other sponsors support the Biennale. We are grateful to Franco Moresco, Alfredo, and all the friends who have made this possible.

Alberto Barbera's activity as artistic director of the cinema section is making an effort and, together with the Biennale College system, reaching toward important objectives. We have a new program, Biennale College, involving the different sectors and artistic disciplines to foster interdisciplinary creation. The Ministry has just signed a new document for the creation of a new fund for contemporary art. The new headquarters of the historic archive will be inaugurated—a place for research and experimentation. It is aimed at all those young people who come to Venice. We believe in the growth of these young scholars, and we must be brave in order to believe in their growth and in the different sections of the new festival. Being brave helps you cultivate a critical spirit. The poetry of our expressive contemporary world creates itself. This brave approach to art can respond to our thirst for culture. It can help build a shelter for those who had their homes destroyed by war. And it can provide truth to those who have only been lied to. Cinema can bring knowledge to people. We have art that can give back conscience to all of us—all of us who are like ostriches hiding our heads in the sand of indifference.

Working with La Biennale, I was sitting and watching others making their best efforts for the realization of this Biennale. I heard some rehearsals and thought of the verses of a song, "Patria" of 1991. I was surprised by the fact that in 1991 the poet was proposing a clear verse in his song: "Aren't you too troubled by those bodies on earth without any heat?" This was written in 1991. He didn't know that in our cell phones, in the information networks, those bodies would become something we are used to, something we have become indifferent to, something we can neglect. I know that in Alberto Barbera's work, we will have a forging of knowledge, a forging of culture, the basis for an active citizenship in our thinking community, with the sky of freedom above us—freedom to allow us to keep our feet, and I'm quoting Rafael Fior, to keep our feet on clouds. Thank you, Alberto. Thank you all.

Thank you, President. The floor to Alberto Barbera.