9. Edition OPEN PRIZE
Special Prize to the 66th Venice International Film Festival
The OPEN Prize is awarded to the director Michael Moore for the film Capitalism: A love story
Award-giving ceremony Wednesday 9th September 2009 at 7 p.m. - Aeroporto Nicelli, Venice Lido
Arte Communications, in collaboration with Bellati Editore, launches the 9th edition of the OPEN Prize, on the occasion of OPEN 12. International Exhibition of Sculptures and Installations. The prize will be awarded to a director taking part in the 66th Venice International Film Festival whose work reveals, in an unprecedented way, a fruitful interest in the fascinating theme of the mutual interaction between art and cinema, two art forms which live on image and are nourished by the desire to express emotions.
The institution of this award, conceived in 2000 by Paolo De Grandis and Pierre Restany, developed parallel to OPEN, the International Exhibition of Sculptures and Installations, which opens its twelfth edition this year on September 2nd at Venice Lido and San Servolo Island.
The OPEN 2009 Prize, a work conceived and realised by the Master Ugo Riva, has been awarded to the director Michael Moore for the film Capitalism: A love story. The jury, composed of the President Paolo De Grandis and the jury members the Councillor for Culture Luana Zanella, Ferruccio Gard, Anna Caterina Bellati and Chang Tsong-zung, gave this interpretation of the film:
“With this splendid film, Michael Moore has finally brought the investigating documentary, on an equal footing, into the history of world cinema. Capitalism: A Love Story is a work which, between biting irony and moments of intense drama, courageously denounces the tragic consequences that capitalism, unhampered by any ethic and with only the ruthless logic of profit, can produce even in the richest country in the world, where 14 thousand people lose their jobs every day, and in losing their job they can also lose their home and health care. As shown by the film, capitalism counts even more than democracy, thanks also to frequently compliant politics, and the reconstruction of the origin of the current economic crisis involves and outrages spectators from any political line of thought, because no one, for example, can remain unmoved by the scenes of families turned out of their homes because they can no longer pay their mortgages to the banks. The symbol of the film can be the yellow tape used by the American police to mark off a crime scene, the same tape with which, in an admirable artistic performance, Michael Moore surrounds a bank on Wall Street and announces through the megaphone that he has come to arrest the criminals. Amidst laughter, indignation and emotion, Michael Moore’s documentary is of the highest social value. It digs deep into our consciences and can become an important contribution to make a more human and democratic capitalism, one that must serve the poor more than the rich, rather than what is happening now in America, and other places too”.
Previous winning directors were Joao Botelho with the film Quem es tu?, Julie Taymor with Frida, Takeshi Kitano with Zatoichi, Marziyeh Meshkini with Sag - haye velgard, Stanley Kwan with Changhen ge (Everlasting Regret), Jia Zhangke with Dong, Peter Greenaway with Nightwatching, Philip Haas with The Butcher’s Shop.
The OPEN exhibition has been held for twelve years, coinciding with the Venice Film Festival, confirming the precise intent to strengthen the bond that exists between art and the cinema; the creation of OPEN Prize bears witness to this close and fertile relationship.