Venice Film Festival

The Venice Film Festival is an exhibition of cinematographic art carried out annually in the lagoon city (usually between the end of the August and the beginning of September) in the historic Cinema Palace, on the Marconi Promenade, in Lido of Venice.

Reaching the 62nd edition in 2005, the exhibition is framed against immense backdrop of the Biennial of Venice, a cultural festival that includes a display of contemporary art. The first edition was held in combination with the 18th Biennial.

The highest award given out – along with various others – is the Golden Lion, deriving its name from the symbol of the city (the lion of the Basilica of San Marco). Such acknowledgment is considered one of the more important from the point of view of the film critic, on par with those awarded in the other two main European film reviews, the Golden Palm of the Cannes Festival and the Golden Bear of Berlin Festival. Together, they comprise three regional awards of great merit, often in competition with the American Oscar, in that two of them generally occur in the spring.