Venice Film Festival Artistic Director Alberto Barbera, whose current mandate is due to expire after this year’s 83nd edition, has been renewed in the role for 2027 and 2028.
The festival announced that La Biennale di Venezia’s board of directors, chaired by Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, had approved the re-appointment.
It follows a buzzy 2025 edition at which the selection included Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt, Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, Kathryn Bigelow’s House of Dynamite, Mona Fastvold’s The Testament of Ann Lee and Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Voice Of Hind Rajab, with Jim Jarmusch’s Father Mother Sister Brother winning the Golden Lion.
The festival said that the renewal had been agreed “in consideration of the results he has achieved in the recognized quality of the selections, in discovering and launching new talents on the international stage, in spreading and advancing the culture of cinema and in expanding audiences.”
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Barbera has been the Artistic Director of La Biennale di Venezia since 2012, having previously held the position from 1998 to 2001.
He originally studied modern literature at Turin University with theses on film History and criticism and then began collaborating with the Italian association of friends of arthouse cinema, A.I.A.C.E., which he chaired from 1977 to 1989.
From 1980 to 1983 he was a critic for the daily newspaper La Gazzetta del Popolo, and since 1982 he has been a member of the Journalists’ Union. He has written for many daily newspapers and periodicals (Città, La Stampa, Essai, Altro Cinema, Bianco & Nero, Cineforum), and collaborated with television and radio programmes such as Cinemascoop (RAI 3), La lampada di Aladino (RAI – DSE), Hollywood Party (Radio3 RAI).
In 1982,he began to collaborate with the Festival Internazionale Cinema Giovani, which then became the Torino Film Festival, serving as its director from 1989 to 1998. From 2002 to 2006 he was the co-director of RING! Festival della Critica in the city of Alessandria in northern Italy.
In 2002, he became a consultant for the National Museum of Cinema in Turin and from June 2004 to December 2016 served as its director.
