{"id":27735,"date":"2025-08-28T01:31:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-28T01:31:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/27735\/"},"modified":"2025-08-28T01:31:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T01:31:07","slug":"paolo-sorrentinos-la-grazia-gets-6-1-2-minute-ovation-in-venice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/27735\/","title":{"rendered":"Paolo Sorrentino’s ‘La Grazia’ Gets 6 1\/2-Minute Ovation In Venice"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tItalian filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino<\/a> returned to the Venice<\/a> Film Festival on Wednesday evening, opening the 82nd edition with his latest feature La Grazia<\/a>. The in-competition drama about the final days of a fictional Italian presidency was greeted with an ovation that lasted 6 minutes and 20 seconds.<\/p>\n

\n\tLa Grazia stars Toni Servillo and Anna Ferzetti. Sorrentino directed the film from his own screenplay in his first film on the Lido since his 2021 Grand Jury Prize winner The Hand of God.<\/p>\n

\n\tRELATED: Venice Film Festival 2025 In Photos: Arrivals, Opening Night, Red Carpets & More<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tAfter tonight\u2019s screening, which had been preceded by a ceremony honoring Werrner Herzog<\/a> with a Lifetime Achievement Golden Lion, the applause started as soon as the credits began, and paused briefly for a mid-credit scene. After the scene, the crowd, which included attendees Tilda Swinton and Cate Blanchett, was more enthusiastic.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn La Grazia, Servillo plays Italian President Mariano DeSantis, an elderly man now in the sunset of his career and in the final six months of his last term. Before he goes, he faces some deep moral decisions including two potential pardons and the question of signing a bill legalizing euthanasia.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn his review<\/a>, Deadline\u2019s Pete Hammond wrote \u201cThe current political winds in both Italy and America have got this masterful filmmaker again thinking about the government and what it means to be a moral leader \u2014 and perhaps why that is becoming such a thing of the past that for the first time he has been forced to create a\u00a0fictional\u00a0president.\u201d Servillo, playing in a lower key than the real-life inspirations of Sorrentino\u2019s\u00a0Il Divo\u00a0and\u00a0Loro, \u201cdelivers a splendid portrayal of a man who has devoted his life to service and the people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe concluded, \u201cSorrentino has made some beauties in his career. This is one of his best.\u201d Other critics<\/a> have mostly been praiseful.<\/p>\n

\n\tEarlier today, Sorrentino shared a tribute<\/a> to the veteran Italian actor and producer Claudio Vecchio, who died earlier this month in Rome. Vecchio starred in Sorrentino\u2019s Oscar winner The Great Beauty and has a brief role in La Grazia.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tLa Grazia is a Fremantle film produced by The Apartment, Numero 10 and PiperFilm, which will distribute in Italy. Mubi owns worldwide rights, excluding Italy. The Match Factory is handling international sales.<\/p>\n

\n\tSorrentino\u2019s relationship with Venice goes back to his first feature One ManUp, which played here in 2001. In 2013, he debuted\u00a0The Great Beauty\u00a0(also starring Servillo) at Cannes, going on to win the Best International Feature Oscar.\u00a0His other credits include Il Divo,\u00a0This Must be the Place, Youth, The Young Pope,\u00a0Loro\u00a0and Parthenope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Italian filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino returned to the Venice Film Festival on Wednesday evening, opening the 82nd edition with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27736,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[268],"tags":[434,18,117,19,17,22422,21735,12876,11492],"class_list":{"0":"post-27735","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-la-grazia","14":"tag-paolo-sorrentino","15":"tag-venice","16":"tag-venice-film-festival"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}