Venice 83 awards two Golden Lions for Lifetime Achievement and creates a section for films about cinema

The 83rd International Film Festival, organised by the Venice Biennale and directed by Alberto Barbera, will be held at the Lido from 2 to 12 September 2026. The event was founded in 1932 and this year reaches its eighty-third edition: the gap between the two figures — ninety-four years of history, eighty-three editions — is the very calendar of the European twentieth century.

The two Golden Lions for Lifetime Achievement announced go to the American actor, director and producer George Clooney and the American actress Ellen Burstyn. The information is published by the Venice Biennale, which is the body that awards the prize: the news currently comes from a single source, the institution itself, and no independent confirmation is available. Since this is a prize conferred by the party announcing it, the source is primary by definition.

The structural novelty. More interesting than the anticipated list of honours is a decision concerning the festival’s architecture. Venice 83 introduces “Film on Films”, an autonomous section dedicated to documentaries recounting cinema, its protagonists and its memory. In previous editions these works were included in Venice Classics, which from this year remains reserved for restorations of past masterpieces. The reconstruction is reported by Sky TG24 based on the presentation press conference and by the programme reported by Today.it.

The separation is not cosmetic. Until yesterday, two different objects coexisted within the same section: the restored film, that is, the original made visible again, and the documentary that builds a discourse upon that original. These are two opposite ways of preserving: one restores the document, the other interprets it. Separating them means acknowledging that the second genre now has its own audience and its own production, and is no longer a scholarly appendix to restorations.

The title that best signals the weight of the new section is “Joie de vivre”, a documentary by Luca Guadagnino dedicated to Bernardo Bertolucci: 435 minutes, the longest film ever presented at the Venice festival. Seven hours and a quarter of screening impose a programming choice that no other title on the bill requires, and place the work outside the ordinary distribution format. The documentary examines Bertolucci’s works with friends, colleagues, filmmakers and critics, and questions the evolution of cinematic language.

On the running time, artistic director Alberto Barbera commented: “I assure you that you remain glued to the screen.” This is an assessment from the person who selected the film, and should be read as such.

435 minutes: the longest film ever presented at the Venice festival.

What actually changes for the festival. A section dedicated to documentaries about cinema creates a stable space for a genre that lives almost exclusively off festivals and archives, and rarely reaches cinemas. In the case of “Joie de vivre”, the running time makes the festival screening not one of several possible outings, but probably the main one: few commercial circuits programme seven hours.

On this second block of information the sources are two and distinct — the presentation press conference reported by a broadcaster and the official programme reported by a second outlet — and concern organisational facts verifiable at the festival’s opening.

The test of facts is set at the Lido: from 2 to 12 September it will be seen how many titles make up the first edition of “Film on Films” and how a 435-minute screening will be placed in the schedule.