What I saw in Venice - Biennale 2021

François Penz, in his essay titled as "What I saw in Venice – biennale 2021" shared his experiences about workshop in Venice – VENICINEMA, Understanding Cities Through Film – in September 2022 at the European Cultural Academy. To get to know a city though cinema is always an enjoyable and informative task, which varies depending on whether one has a prior knowledge of the city or not. But a prior knowledge of a city through film can only provide a ‘theoretical’ insight that only gets ‘realised’ while actually being physically present in time and place. In other words, ‘watching a city film can be a three-way process: we see a film and gain a knowledge of a city; we then visit this city and experience a form of déja vu; we then watch the film again and the experience of having seen the place acts as a memory recall that gives a much stronger emotional connection to both the film and the city. Venice offers a layered richness of experience through cinema as a place to be discovered not only for foreigners but even for Italians. The aim of this workshop was to engage the participants’ interest in the various facets of the relationship between cinema and Venice, the opportunity to reflect on its characterisation in the movies. The study of Venetian narrative films not only opened the path to an innovative reflection on the complexity of the city as experience but also provide a basic understanding of screen language that equipped participants to make their own short films.