On the evening of August 8, 1939, Hitler’s Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels led a fleet of gondolas down the Canal Grande. He’d been invited to attend the opening of the seventh Venice Film Festival, which began in a lugubrious atmosphere. The specter of a new world conflict was haunting Europe; critics dispatching from the Lido wrote of an “empty” Venice, “long-faced people,” “little dancing” and “lots of play to chase away negative thoughts.” Back then, the festival functioned as a sort of political summit; the Biennale invited delegations from different countries, which would submit the films themselves. Sixteen nations took […]
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