Barbera, Again, Defends Polanski, “He is One of the Last Great European Masters”

This year’s Venice Film Festival lineup has sparked controversy due to the inclusion of films by Roman Polanski, Woody Allen and Luc Besson. We’re going to be hearing a lot about this in the next few days as Venice kicks off on the 31st.

Here’s Venice boss, Alberto Barbera, in his latest interview with The Guardian, defending the inclusion of Polanski’s “The Palace”, yet again:

“Polanski is one of the last great masters of European cinema. He made huge mistakes 50 years ago. He recognised that he was guilty [in the case involving the 13-year-old]. He asked to be forgiven by the victim, and the victim gave her forgiveness. I’m not a judge who is asked to make a judgment about the bad behaviour of someone. I’m a film critic, my job is judging the quality of his films. But of course, it’s a very difficult situation.”

Barbera stresses that distinctions must be made “between the man and the artist. We can still admire their work. I’m pretty sure in some decades’ time, everyone will have forgotten about the history of the rape from Polanski, but they will still admire his films.”

I guess one can say that Polanski is “one of the last great European masters.” Filmmakers who’ve been making movies for over 50 years? There aren’t many left. Werner Herzog, Victor Erice, Aki Kaurismäki, Ken Loach, Wim Wenders …

Barbera, who also invited Polanski’s last film, “An Officer And A Spy,” to the festival in 2019, has remained loyal to Polanski, insisting that the 1978 charges against the filmmaker are “useless”, and noting the fact that his victim Samantha Geimer has “forgiven him multiple times”.

“The Palace,” being billed as a “dark comedy,” takes place at a palace in Gstaad on New Year’s Eve in 1999, with hotel guests coming from all over the world to the lavish dinner party, where the celebrations take an unexpected dark turn.

Polanski’s “The Palace” is set to screen at Venice on September 2nd. An international trailer was released a few weeks ago.