Munich is closer to Venice (440 kilometers) than Berlin (570 kilometers). And although this geographical and at least as emotional fact has not really changed for centuries, it has never been as obvious as it is today. The Asian and American tourist flows have subsided with the pandemic, as has the Aqua Alta from the fall before last. What stayed: Bayern. Now that there is space again in the Serenissima, they’d rather come than ever. There is hardly a Munich resident who has not posted the same picture in the past few months, on Instagram, Facebook or in the Whatsapp family group: the still astonishingly empty St. Mark’s Square. And: they are quite popular with the Venetians. You will marvel at the old and the new art that the city offers in abundance. Then make extensive use of your Italian menu and finally drink the Spritz where it tastes even better than in the courtyard garden. And they stay overnight several times. “You just come by car,” says Paolo Lorenzini, “then you don’t even have to get on a plane in times of pandemic”. He is the legendary hotel manager of the even more legendary Gritti Palace. This is the favorite Venetian hostel of stars like Marlene Dietrich, Paul Newman, Robin Williams – and some Bavarians like the lively art collector and consultant Gisela Winkelhofer. Regulars on the Grand Canal and only rarely in their home near Passau.
Yes, it is the Venice Film Festival, the “Mostra dell Cinema”. Well, to be honest, there would still be room for improvement in terms of the presence from Bavaria. Only the BR proudly refers to a film that it co-produced: “Land of Dreams”. This work by the otherwise not at all Bavarian director Shirin Neshat (lives temporarily in Berlin of all places) is set in the near future and is about a woman who asks people about their dreams as part of a study in the American Midwest. Of course, they don’t tell her anything about Venice or the foothills of the Alps, more about poverty and fears. Maybe that’s what makes the film worthy of prizes. But Bayern should by no means admit defeat at this point!
You can’t just come and see. You can win too. Even with the Mostra. Yes, in truth they have been around for a long time. In all of the 78th festival years. As? If everyone who is reading this now vows not to let our father know under any circumstances – Markus Söder falls away from his own modesty in the end – then we will reveal it: This animal, that all over the lagoon on pedestals stands and is scratched into walls, which is poured in gold and is ceremoniously presented to the best of the artists at the end of the Mostra, everyone can say that it is the “Venetian” – it is in truth the “Bavarian Lion”! And that from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer even more so. Is this falsification of history? I where. That’s nice.