A funny backstage story that you remember?
A Star Is Born, for example, with Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga. She arrived in Venice extremely emotional. She had done an amazing red carpet, and taking his arm to accompany him into the theater, she was trembling, right? I asked, "Are you emotional?" She said, "Look, I am terrified." I said, "How is that possible? You're used to concerts with 100,000 people, and here you have a theater with 1,000 spectators waiting for you." And she said, "Yes, but this is my first movie."
Alberto, thank you for accepting this invitation.
Thank you for inviting me. It is truly a great pleasure.
No, I mean, we feel a bit of responsibility. The Director of the International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art—did I say it right?
You said it perfectly. Yes, but you shouldn't feel that way. Look, with all the figures you've had here, don't worry about it. I am one of the last.
No, no, you're not one of the last, absolutely. But we can also say Venice Film Festival.
The Venice Film Festival—it is one of those names that is unpronounceable in its full length. I even tried to convince the Biennale to drop "International." I said, everyone already knows that the festival covers cinema from all over the world. But they say, "Oh, but you can't; tradition, history, and so on."
The customary question: have you ever been in a barn?
Look, my grandfather—my maternal grandfather, my mother's father—was a farm manager and managed the L'Asinara property in the Biella area. Unfortunately, he died very young of cancer at age 42, before I was born. In fact, I've visited stables, henhouses, and I think even pigsties, but I've never been in a hayloft. However, I have seen many haylofts in the cinema, because cinema has frequented many barns throughout its history.
Can I tell you an anecdote? One of the first films I saw when I was very young—I started going to the cinema before age six, around five—was a movie with Stewart Granger called Scaramouche. I remember this scene because it stuck with me: he was going into this barn with a beautiful girl, and after a while he came out carrying her in his arms, and she was picking pieces of straw from her hair. So there was an unseen erotic dimension because American cinema in those years didn't show things explicitly, but you could sense it, right? I was very little, and the erotic element of that scene didn't escape me. The situation here is a bit different, right?
That's true. But can you smell the scent?
And you'll see that it's also therapeutic, right? It lowers your heart rate, so you relax.
Look, thank you. For the non-insiders, why did the idea for this cinematic set come about? Because the barn has been a theater not only for filming, but also for refuge. Many people were saved and saved their lives—I think of the partisans or the Jews. It was also the place of first loves, first kisses, and conversations. So we thought of reproducing it, considering it is a very ancestral element in a digital world where you no longer see a bale of hay.
You are absolutely right. It's a wonderful idea.
Thank you very much. You were born in Occhieppo Inferiore, did I say it right?
And you are from Piedmont, from Biella, I would say. You graduated in Modern Literature and wrote a thesis on cinema history, essentially film criticism. What was that academic experience like, and why did you choose that thesis?
Well, you know, I started going to the cinema because my uncle was the cashier at the parish cinema in our town, so I began going regularly. He often let me in for free to stay and watch, and it became a habit. Every Sunday I went to the movies, and from early on I decided that when I grew up, I wanted to work in cinema. Like all children, at first I wanted to be an actor.
And also a director, I read.
Around age 14, I realized that the director was more important than the actor because he was the one in charge. Then I understood that to be a director, you need great artistic and creative talent, which I did not possess. So I scaled back my ambitions and said, "I'll become a film critic," and that's how I started.
But I left out one thing: you also ran away from the cinema.
Well, the first time I ran away, I was very little—not even five years old, maybe four and a half. I had stopped by with my father to say hello to my uncle, I think on a Sunday afternoon. We went in after the film had already started; there was a tense scene, and I got frightened immediately, so I asked to leave. But since fear is one of the strongest emotions, my curiosity remained. I immediately started going back to the cinema, and I never stopped.
I also frequented those parish cinemas and saw my first movies there. I saw Belfagor there, for instance, and it was a great experience. Those were still the cinemas that used reels.
And I remember that as kids we would go collect the scraps, because back then waste management wasn't very sustainable. They would throw cut pieces of film from the balcony, so we collected those film scraps to look at them against the light. Did that happen to you?
I used to collect posters and playbills, because my uncle kept all the posters in the back of the cinema that didn't need to be returned. At the time, some posters were rented and others were purchased. The ones the cinema bought, they didn't know what to do with afterward, so he gave them to me. I decorated our entire cellar at home by hanging these posters on the walls. They were dreams, because when you see a poster, even if you haven't seen the film, you start imagining it and dreaming about it in the hope of seeing it. That was one of the sparks that built this passion, which fortunately continues to this day.
We could certainly sense that. But those posters were very vivid and romanticized, yet they immediately gave you an idea.
You know, back then they were drawn by great illustrators. Some of them are still alive today. They would take inspiration from the film and embellish the image of the film itself, because the goal was to generate desire, curiosity, and the urge to go see the film. They were fantastic posters that made you dream, imagining what the film might be like once you saw it.
You are the son of Ugo Barbera, who also had an amazing story. You are also the grandson of a jeweler. What did your grandfather do?
My grandfather was a watchmaker and jeweler; he was the town watchmaker and had a very popular shop that passed to my uncle when my grandfather passed away. My uncle would tell me stories from the war period about when they went to get supplies—not just watches, but also butter and salami, often in the Vercelli countryside.
Is this the uncle who was at Dachau, or another uncle?
My father had three brothers and one sister. One brother was at Dachau; he was taken prisoner in Greece and sent to Dachau, but he never wanted to talk about it. I was never able to get him to tell me anything, except about the ship he was being transported on to Italy, which was sunk by a German submarine, after which they took all the prisoners to Germany. My father, who was in the anti-aircraft artillery in Trapani, Sicily, was captured by the Americans. He was fortunate, because he was taken to America and spent two quite lively years there. It was one of those open camps with relations with the local community, so he interacted with the locals. He sang in a choir, learned to paint, learned English, and perhaps even got engaged—I remember a photograph with an American lady whom he didn't talk about, but it was clear something happened.
And what memories do you have of your father as a painter?
I have wonderful memories of him. He didn't have much formal education; he attended vocational school, and then the war broke out, interrupting his studies. But he had immense intellectual and artistic curiosity, attracted to all artistic phenomena. He read extensively; I used to read many novels looking over his shoulder, trying to follow along with what he was reading. He was drawn to painting, though due to time constraints he later stopped, but he had acquired an impressive technique. There are still some paintings at my brother's and sister's houses, and I am truly impressed by his technique. They were often copies of famous paintings, but beautifully executed.
He did figurative painting.
Yes, figurative painting, naturally. He was curious about everything, and he passed that curiosity on to me, along with another trait: perfectionism. My father was a perfectionist.
One can read that everywhere.
Whatever he did had to be perfect. It took as long as it took, but it had to be perfect, and he didn't accept compromises of any kind. He passed that on to me, just as I inherited his curiosity, openness, availability, and generosity. My father was extremely generous.
Consistency, naturally. For a certain period he was involved in politics and was appointed Assessor of Public Works for the town, but he resigned because he refused to accept any compromises. So he had a certain rigor, which is also part of the baggage I carry from those years.
One aspect struck me—I don't know if what I read is true—that you regret that your father never told you about the war.
No, I regret that I never asked him questions. When you're young, you are less curious about the past. Now I am passionate about history; I love books reconstructing the past and historical events. But back then, like all young people, I looked toward the future, so the curiosity to ask him what the war was like and what it meant for their generation never crossed my mind. I never asked, and I truly regret that today, because I missed out on a human experience that probably could have taught me something more.
There are three siblings in your family?
And what do your siblings do? Do they work in cinema?
No, absolutely not. My brother, who didn't want to study much, went to work immediately at Olivetti, became a computer technician, and worked his whole life at a company in that field. My sister worked for a bit at first as a shop assistant in a couple of stores, and then, wanting a large family, got married and had three children in a row. At that point, she left her job and dedicated herself entirely to her family.
Your mother is Itala Ceria. You mentioned earlier she was the daughter of a farm manager?
She was the daughter of this farm manager, and I believe she passed on the passion for cinema to me because she was always going to the movies when she was young.
She loved cinema very much. That was no small feat in those years.
We're talking about the war years. I remember during the war, living near Cossato in the Biella area about ten kilometers from Biella, she told me she would take the bus into Biella just to go to the cinema and then return home. She was very young at the time, of course, and I certainly inherited this passion from her.
You've done so many things. If I were to list all your awards and activities... but let's start with something you did for about a year: you taught in school.
Ah, yes. I tried. And then I ran away from teaching. I still remember it like a nightmare. It was a middle school, and I had a first-year class and a third-year class. With the third-year class, I got along quite well; they were disciplined, they listened, they were curious about having a young teacher, and they asked me questions about 1968 because I came from that background and they realized it.
The first-year class was unmanageable. I couldn't get a single moment of silence in any lesson. It was a constant battle against these wild kids talking continuously. I realized that teaching is a very specific profession. You need not only great passion, but real talent. In fact, truly great teachers are very rare; we haven't encountered many with that gift. So I realized it wasn't for me, and after a year of stress, exhaustion, and anxiety, I decided that wasn't my path.
I remember driving around a school for an hour because I had received a substitute teaching offer for a second year, asking myself: do I go in or not? After an hour of circling the school, I decided not to go in. I stopped by a post office and sent a telegram to the school board asking to remove my name from all regional teacher lists so I wouldn't receive any more offers.
That shows a characteristic of your father: consistency.
Well, yes, because at that time I was already 29 years old. I had no job and a passion that hadn't yet translated into a professional career. I had recently married, and giving up a paying position drew reactions. But another great quality I must credit my father with is that he respected all my choices without ever interfering, complaining, or trying to influence me. He trusted me deeply and accepted whatever stance I took, even the mistaken ones. My in-laws were a bit less convinced by the decision.
Did you have children already?
No, I didn't have children yet. So an unknown future opened up.
Meaning you gave up a secure job...
...which I gave up for nothing, because I had no alternative other than the desire to find work in or related to cinema. I was very lucky. Another thing that has accompanied me throughout my life is luck—call it destiny, karma, or opportunities opening up suddenly. I was unemployed, and suddenly a film critic position opened at Gazzetta del Popolo, so I started working there. Then, unfortunately, the newspaper went bankrupt. After about two or two and a half years, I found myself without a job again, and then another stroke of luck occurred.
The Festival Internazionale Cinema Giovani, which the City of Turin decided to fund, and there I began working for the festival.
Essentially working as a critic.
I did press office work the first year, and then the festival director at the time—my university professor Gianni Rondolino—offered me the role of both general secretary, handling all festival organization, and programmer. The festival was run by four people who covered every role imaginable, from daily accounting to every part of the production. It was an extraordinary training ground because none of us knew how to run a festival—no one teaches you; you learn by making mistakes. We made plenty, which I still remember with some embarrassment, but I learned a profession.
You were also at AIACE, dealing with arthouse cinema. What can you tell me about that experience?
You stayed at AIACE for quite a while, right?
From 1977 to 1989, perhaps?
Yes, but even before that, while still at university, AIACE was looking for students to write summaries for first-run arthouse films. We would look up reviews, interviews, and data in foreign magazines where the film had already premiered, translate them, and compile them.
Alberto, let's remind people that AIACE is the Italian Association of Arthouse Cinema Friends.
Arthouse cinema, and the Turin chapter was the strongest there was, reaching 28,000 members.
A bit fewer now, but it still exists and conducts activities related to education and the dissemination of film culture. I started there writing film sheets. Then, after military service, they appointed me secretary of the Turin chapter of AIACE. I remained secretary for a long time, managing memberships, organizing screenings, premieres, and meetings with authors and directors. That's where I learned the organizational side that later served me in running festivals. When programming a festival, one applies the tools provided by university studies and critical work to make selection choices that are far from obvious. People always ask me what the criteria are.
There are no objective criteria, of course; there is knowledge of cinema, film history, and film aesthetics.
All these roles and travels eventually bring the Venetian lagoon into view from a distance. You arrived in Venice in 1998.
Forgive me if I skipped ahead.
You arrived in 1998. What was your first reaction when they told you there was a serious festival available?
When I was first contacted, the president was Paolo Baratta, the newly appointed president of the Biennale from the previous year.
Following the reform led by Veltroni that transformed a parastatal entity into a foundation.
Was Urbani already the minister back then?
No, Urbani came in 2001. Baratta was the first president of the Biennale's new course.
He wanted to break away from the Roman directors and the Roman undergrowth that troubled him with its insider cliques, which is understandable.
Absolutely, yes. He came looking for someone outside of all that. I was in Turin, confined to my city, and initially I didn't want to accept. It took him more than a month to convince me to accept a role that seemed distant from everything, including my own expectations. I made the right choice to accept, also pushed by Gianni Rondolino, who told me, "You cannot pass up the opportunity of a lifetime, so accept." And with great apprehension, I accepted.
Seriously, did you really think about it for a month before saying yes?
Yes. For a month I kept saying no. I told the president, "Look, in Turin I work under conditions of complete autonomy and freedom..."
A total comfort zone. I had the full trust of the city, region, province, and the two banking foundations, who asked for nothing and blindly trusted everything—the budgets, the festival's cultural direction, and our selections. So I asked, "Why should I leave all this to go to Venice?" which had a terrible reputation at the time, as you'll recall; it was an arena for political skirmishes of all kinds. I didn't want to get into a hornet's nest, so I said no. I had just had my second child, who was being born that October. I said, "Look, my mind is elsewhere; I don't want to think about Venice, I don't want to come." Then I was convinced.
I remember very clearly the first day after the Turin Film Festival ended: I came straight to Venice, took the train, and then boarded the Line 1 vaporetto from the station to Giustinian. It was one of those gorgeous, crisp winter days with fantastic sunshine. It was 1:00 PM, crossing the Grand Canal on the vaporetto to go to Giustinian. It felt like an incredible dream, with all the natural fears, because dealing with an institution like the Biennale and a festival of Venice's international stature was certainly intimidating.
Did you already know Paolo Baratta?
During that month when he was trying to convince me, we met at least three or four times—once in Turin, once in Milan, and once he invited me to his home in Rome. We discussed the issues of the film festival, the future, projects, and the possibility of renovating the structures. So we got to know each other, and a relationship began forming that lasted for a long time.
Hadrian says in his memoirs that the true birthplace is that place where a person looks upon themselves for the first time. Is Venice your birthplace?
In a sense, yes, because I stepped out of my shell—out of that comfort zone where I had worked for so many years, 16 years at the Turin Film Festival after Gazzetta del Popolo. Turin was an aristocratic city, but also a bit provincial, isolated, and separate from the rest of the country, outside the major influential circles. Finding myself thrust into the Biennale, which is an international reality and one of the cultural beacons of this country recognized worldwide, feeling the weight of that responsibility with my limited means... I hadn't hidden it; I told Baratta, "Look, coming from Turin, I have no connections with Hollywood. I've dealt with lots of independent productions, young directors, and young producers, but never with major international cinema." He told me, "Don't worry, it will come together."
Another great stroke of luck: I remember my first trip to Los Angeles in January 1999. My very first appointment on that international trip was at Warner Bros. The head of international invited me to lunch at a restaurant inside the studios, and the first thing he said to me was, "We have the opening film for Venice." I said, "That's impossible. What is it?"
Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut. His final film.
His very last, because then he passed away.
The extraordinary thing was not only that it was a highly anticipated film that had been talked about for years during production with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, which everyone had been reporting on, but above all, Kubrick had never been to a festival; he had refused to participate in festivals his whole life. So I asked, "How is that possible?" and he said, "Don't worry, we've already spoken with Stanley Kubrick, and he agreed." You can imagine my return with the news that we would have it for August 1999.
Sadly, Kubrick died around April or May of that year. But the film was completed, so there was no issue. I remember the opening in Venice with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman on stage, and Bernardo Bertolucci reading an extraordinary tribute to Kubrick, engaging in self-criticism by saying, "We cinephiles always treated Kubrick dismissively, thinking he was too intellectual and made cinema that was too cold and detached, whereas he is one of the greatest directors in film history." Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman were moved to tears on stage remembering their relationship with Kubrick and the making of a film that has gone down in history.
Forgive me, but I don't think that was just blind luck. If you had stayed in Turin, or worse, stayed in Venice on the sofa, you wouldn't have gone to Los Angeles. The message emerging from all these barn stories is that there is always a decisive spark that changes the course of history.
A few days ago, someone asked Sinner what the secret to his success was. He replied, "Talent, but above all obsession, because I am obsessed with tennis." And it is clear that you are obsessed with cinema.
Without a doubt. And you also have to dare, you have to throw yourself into it, and not be afraid of the possible consequences. Anything can happen—things can go wrong—but if you don't dare and take risks, you achieve nothing.
Otherwise, a meteorite will just hit you on the couch. But things didn't end well there, right? You arrived in 1998 and left in 2001. Why did that happen?
In 2001, as everyone remembers, Berlusconi won the election. Urbani was appointed Minister of Culture, and the first thing he did was apply the spoils system across all cultural activities directly or indirectly controlled or funded by the Ministry of Culture. I still remember that back then the Art Biennale opened late, in June. Sgarbi, who was Undersecretary, came for the opening visit on the first day. He called me to accompany him, and while we were in the Giardini he told me, "Look, they tell me you're the best of all, truly extraordinary, but we have to change things, so I'm sorry, but we must." I said there was no problem. He said, "If you want to work with us, we'll find you something else to do." I told him, "Don't worry, I understand completely, it's fine as it is."
That transition allowed me to return to Turin and become director of the Cinema Museum. The City of Turin had inaugurated the National Cinema Museum at the Mole Antonelliana in 1999, but strangely, when they drafted a new statute to transform the private association into a foundation, they forgot to include the position of director. Chiamparino, who was mayor of Turin at the time, called me and asked, "Do you want to be director of the museum?" I said, "With great pleasure." It took a year and a half to complete all the necessary procedures to amend the statute and make the appointment, but I began that extraordinary adventure, which I remember with immense joy because it was fantastic to grow the new museum.
Remind us how many visitors you receive.
I believe it has now reached 800,000 visitors a year at the Mole Antonelliana, which has limited capacity—no more than 600 people can be inside at once. Above all, it became a cultural hub for the city of Turin.
I always hope you'll do something like that here. I tell you every time. Could something else be done?
Certainly, it could even be a collaboration.
Then came your return in 2012. Who called you in 2012?
Baratta, of course. He asked me to return. This time too, I hesitated for a long time because I didn't want to leave the work I was doing at the museum, which was growing. It had expanded from two activities—the Mole Antonelliana and the collection—to seven activities with three festivals and a multiplex programmed by the museum. It was extraordinary, fascinating work. I couldn't say no to Baratta, so initially I asked for a compromise: to continue doing both, under the illusion that it was possible. After four years, I realized the workload required by the two foundations was unsustainable, so I left the museum.
Let me share a statistic so no one accuses you: we went from 900 submitted films to 4,500.
Well, cinema has changed. But the other interesting figure accompanying the festival's international growth is that when I arrived in 2012, the previous year the Biennale had sold 35,000 tickets to the paying public. Last year we sold 105,000, with roughly the same venues. Multiplying the number of paying spectators by three, not counting the more than 13,000 accredited guests, means the festival has returned to being a hugely successful event nationally and internationally.
If we were to look at the numbers of the film festival today, what are they?
You already gave one. When I first arrived in Venice in 1999, I was amazed by the volume of films we had to select—around 900, which seemed like an impossible task. Last year we received 4,200, and this year we reached 4,550. Every year the number of films submitted to Venice grows by about 10%, which requires immense work. Not to complain, but all year round I do nothing but watch films from morning to night, answering emails and phone calls. I can't do anything else, which is a bit of a sacrifice.
I will ask you some questions about the film selection later, from a spectator's point of view.
