Please recycle ... George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Tilda Swinton and Frances McDormand en route for the Burn After Reading photocall in Venice today. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty
Outside the Palazzo del Cinema, come seven o'clock tonight, amongst the excited chattering of the Venetian star spotters, you might overhear this:
"LOOK! There's Brad Pitt! Arggggghhhh! Brad! Ohmigod! George Clooney! Eeeeeeeee! And ... ummmm ... Anne Hathaway? ... Did you see Brad Pitt? ... Who's this? Frances McDormand?! Hmmm ..."
And well might they hmmm. International festivals rely on star power and this year the consensus is that Venice ain't got none. Apart from Brad and George of course. The writers' strike has delayed US releases that would have premiered at the festival, while the global economic downturn has put the squeeze on the studios, shackling their ability to put Hollywood somebodies up in appropriately luxurious hotels (the lowest priced double room at the Hotel Cipriani goes for around £700).
But even with an array of A-list US stars in attendance this year's festival would have failed to match up to its British counterpart, the London Film Festival (LFF), for one simple reason. Like Cannes, Venice has glamour, style, big-money sophistication, but little attempt is made to attract the casual film-goer, the kind of viewer that all festivals should court if they want to encourage cinema attendance as an alternative to that old satanic ritual, illegal downloading.
I think the organisers at the LFF realise that it's not the star power you've got, but what you do with it that counts. So, while many of the films at the LFF may well go straight from their premiere on the BFI Southbank's screens to the immaculate glass-fronted DVD displays propped outside of them, the festival's organisers do at least make concessions to the "ordinary" film fan. Last year saw a series of Leicester Square premieres - a number of them star-packed crowd pleasers (Juno, The Darjeeling Limited, Bee Movie) where you didn't have to read the subtitles or nuffink. Factor in those screenings with Q+A sessions with the directors and stars of the movie and you have that rare thing - an arts event relevant to both the artistic community and the casual punter.
Film festivals like Venice shouldn't have to dumb down their programmes, but they should think about how they could use Hollywood glitz to introduce more people to the art of cinema as the LFF has done. And realise that most people go to cinema to be entertained, a point that Marco Müller, director of this year's Venice festival has (reluctantly) acknowledged: "Cinema is also entertainment, and this year, we try to remember that."
Maybe they've finally realised that full cinemas are just as important as a full red carpet?
