As climate anxieties continue to rise—2024 officially marked as Earth’s hottest year on record—it’s heartening to see the cultural world step forward with a spirit of collaboration and reflection. The 82nd Venice International Film Festival, opening with a compelling double feature on Tuesday August 26th in the Sala Darsena, seems poised to do exactly that.
Far from being merely a glamorous prelude, this year’s “double pre-opening” skilfully intertwines urgent ecological themes with timeless cinematic treasures. At 6 pm, the world premiere of Origin, the Venetian Lagoon by celebrated French photographer and environmental advocate Yann Arthus-Bertrand will illuminate the fragile yet stunning balance of life in Venice’s famed waterways.
Arthus-Bertrand, whose previous works Human and Woman brought global audiences face-to-face with humanity’s diverse faces and challenges, now turns his lens on the Venetian Lagoon—a natural marvel caught between land and sea. His new 30-minute film is an extended version of the short currently introducing the Natural Intelligence section at the Biennale Architettura 2025.
That exhibition is on until the 23rd November under the title Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective, and urges architects, scientists, and citizens alike to reconsider how we build our world in the face of a fragile climate. Architecture has always been a response to a hostile climate. Today, while the climate is becoming less and less mild and in 2024 the Earth has reached the highest temperatures ever recorded, the Biennale Architettura invites collaboration between different types of intelligence to rethink together the built environment. Venice, perhaps more than any other city on Earth, embodies this delicate negotiation between human ambition and environmental reality. From soaring drone views of its intricate patchwork of islands and canals to quiet meditations on water and light, Origin, the Venetian Lagoon invites us to see this fragile ecosystem anew—and, hopefully, to rethink how we protect it.
Following the screening, audiences can look forward to a dialogue among Arthus-Bertrand, Biennale Architettura curator Carlo Ratti, and Venice Film Festival artistic director Alberto Barbera. It’s a conversation that couldn’t be timelier, or more needed.
Then, as night falls at 9 pm, the festival shifts gears to the celluloid grandeur of Queen Kelly (1929). This silent-era gem by Erich von Stroheim comes with an extraordinary backstory. Production on Queen Kelly was notoriously turbulent—von Stroheim was fired just three months into filming following a dramatic fallout with both his lead actress and co-producer, Gloria Swanson. Swanson, a Hollywood icon of the era, was also romantically involved with the film’s financier, Joseph P. Kennedy, patriarch of the Kennedy political dynasty and father to John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy.
Swanson stars as Patricia Kelly, a naïve convent girl who catches the eye of Prince Wolfram, a debauched royal engaged to the stern Queen Regina. When the Queen discovers the affair, Kelly is whipped out of the palace and exiled to Africa, where she ultimately ends up being married and running a brothel under the ironic name “Queen Kelly.”
Originally envisioned as a five-hour epic, the film was never completed as intended. But thanks to the meticulous restoration of long-lost materials, Queen Kelly lives again—standing not only as a piece of cinematic history, but also as a testament to how art can be reclaimed and reimagined through preservation.
In pairing these two vastly different works—a meditative ecological film and a nearly century-old cinematic melodrama—the Venice Film Festival sends a subtle but profound message: that caring for our natural heritage and safeguarding our cultural legacies are intertwined responsibilities. If we lose one, the other inevitably follows.
So, as festivalgoers gather in the Sala Darsena on August 26, they’ll not only be witnessing a feast of visuals and storytelling. They’ll also be part of a broader call to action: to use every tool at our disposal—natural intelligence, artificial intelligence, and above all, collective human intelligence—to adapt, preserve, and imagine a more sustainable future.
STATEMENT BY YANN ARTHUS-BERTRAND
“I’ve been fascinated by Venice for over forty years, to the point of dedicating two books to it as soon as the 80s. A few years later, I filmed the Venice lagoon for Human and since then I’ve dreamt of devoting a complete film to it. When I was asked to make a short film for the Biennale Architettura, I was overjoyed and accepted straight away. It was an opportunity to create an artistic, sensitive film, where the music embraces the beauty of the lagoon. Then La Biennale di Venezia asked me to make a feature-length version, and I was delighted to go back. There I met Giovanni Pellegrini, a passionate Venetian drone pilot, with whom I captured some unique images. A storm over the lagoon gave us a rare natural moment, with time standing still. Thanks to the drones, I was able to show a different Venice, far removed from the postcard images, more mysterious and wilder. I wanted to tell the story of its origins: human intelligence in the face of a hostile environment. This film is my tribute to the lagoon and to the men and women who built Venice.”
YANN ATHUS- BERTRAND
Biography
A photographer, filmmaker and activist, Yann Arthus-Bertrand works for a humanist ecology through his passion for life, the natural landscapes of our planet and the men and women who inhabit it.
He is the author of the best-selling book, La Terre vue du ciel (Earth seen from the sky), a compendium of the most beautiful landscapes in the world to “bear witness to the beauty of the world and try to protect the Earth”. His photographs will be the subject of exhibitions outside museums, thus making them accessible to all audiences in several countries around the world.
In 2005, Yann created the GoodPlanet foundation. Recognized as being of public interest, its vocation is to raise awareness among the greatest number about ecological and solidarity issues, and to encourage actions for a more sustainable world. His credo: «Acting makes happy». Between 2009 and 2013, he also developed the projects 6 billion Others, then 7 billion Others, whose principle is to meet the inhabitants of the planet and gather their testimonies to draw a sensitive portrait of humanity. More than 6,000 testimonies were filmed in 84 countries. Directly inspired by this project, will follow the films Human in 2015 and Woman in 2019, the two great humanistic works of Yann presented both at the Mostra.
In 2009, Yann created Home. Designed as a travel diary, consisting solely of aerial images, the film tells about the special link that unites man to Earth. It is the first film to be released on the same day, on June 5th at midnight, in 181 countries and across all media. 15 years after its release, the film claims 800 million viewers.
With his company Hope Production, a non-profit making company created in 2011, Yann has since produced and directed numerous discovery and awareness films on environmental issues such as Legacy, notre héritage and more recently Nature, pour une réconciliation.
