emma jones has been meeting the a—listers in venice. look at her! watched venice become hugely influential as a trendsetter in the oscars race. alan moloney now looks back at the history of the festival. few other cities in the world can provide a backdrop like venice. just askjames bond, indiana jones or, more recently, ethan hunt. travelling through this floating city is like moving through cinematic history. the venice film festival is obviously very special because it was the first one, and without the venice film festival, we wouldn't have cannes and toronto and all the other festivals that make up the festival circuit. it's had this incredibly exciting, very difficult, turbulent history and under mussolini, italy was very keen to sort of champion italian culture and art, and particularly cinema. mussolini saw the benefit of that. of course, this is not entirely unproblematic. the end of the second world war and an agreement with the cannes film festival saw venice move to september in the calendar. the post—war period proved to be a rich time

my colleague emma jones is there. it's a special anniversary here at venice.

emma jones has been meeting the a—listers in venice. look at her!oving through cinematic history. the venice film festival is obviously very special because it was the first one and without the venice film festival, we wouldn't have cannes and toronto and all the other festivals that make up the festival circuit. it's had this incredibly exciting, very difficult, turbulent history and under mussolini, italy was very keen to sort of champion italian culture and art, and particularly cinema. mussolini saw the benefit of that. of course, this is not entirely unproblematic. the end of the second world war and an agreement with the cannes film festival saw venice moved to september in the calendar. the post—war period proved to be a rich time for the festival, attracting prestigious films as well as iconic movie stars, but the party days didn't last forever. fanned by civil unrest in paris in 1968, the festival actually stopped awarding prizes for the next decade. venice became something of an afterthought, suffering in comparison to the glitz of cannes