Moritz de Hadeln remembered at Venice Film Festival

The Venice Film Festival has opened on the Lido, and the New York Times is using the occasion to remember Moritz de Hadeln, the festival's director from 1989 to 1999, who died this year. In a tribute published this week, the paper describes his legacy as one of bringing film to the masses and celebrating the power of cinema as a shared cultural experience.

De Hadeln's career spanned some of Europe's most important film festivals. Before Venice, he directed the Locarno Festival in Switzerland, and after Venice he led the Berlin International Film Festival, the Berlinale, from 2001 to 2006. The New York Times notes that his approach was consistently populist in the best sense — he believed festivals should not be hermetic gatherings for critics and industry insiders but open windows onto world cinema for broad audiences.

His decade at Venice coincided with a period of transition for Italian cinema, as the industry adjusted to the end of the studio era and the rise of international co-productions. De Hadeln's programming reflected that shift, giving space to both established auteurs and emerging directors from Asia, Africa and Latin America.