New Artistic Director For Venice Film Festival

Alberto Barbera, the head of the Italian film archives and a former artistic director of the Venice Film Festival, will return to his old job at Venice’s helm, replacing long-time artistic director Marco Mueller. Barbera’s appointment ends weeks of speculation about the fate of the world’s oldest film festival, and it comes just four days before Mueller’s mandate was set to expire. The decision not to reappoint the well regarded Mueller to the post was the result of a power struggle between Mueller and Paolo Baratta, the newly-re-appointed president of the Venice Biennale, the foundation that oversees the festival and other cultural events in Venice. It has been an open secret that Mueller and Baratta have clashed repeatedly during the past four years. It is not clear what Mueller will do next, though his name has been attached in the Italian press to the six-year-old Rome International Film Festival. If Mueller resurfaces in Rome as the Italian press speculates, it could re-stoke the rivalry between the two events, which are less than two months apart, to grab headlines and superstars for their respective events. Italian blood sport at its finest…….

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