Italian film director Bernardo Bertolucci, who chaired the jury in the main competition of the 70th Venice Film Festival, told reporters on opening day that he wants to be ‘surprised and amazed’ by a movie. Miss Violence is probably his kind of movie. Directed by Greek American Alexandros Avranas, this film made a big impression on the jury, critics and the public. So it should come as no surprise the film won two main prizes: one for best director (Silver Lion) and the other for the best male interpretation (Themis Panou). Some thought Avranas should have even won the coveted Golden Lion award. Avranas studied sculpture at the School of Fine Arts in Athens and graduated from the Universitat der Kunste in Berlin in 2008. Fresh out of university, it wasn’t long before he directed his first movie titled Without. When the Greek director and his team descended triumphantly on the red carpet for the festival’s closing ceremony, the Greek soundtrack of the movie played in the background. This is no doubt good news for Greece and for a new generation of filmmakers. The Venice Festival this year even paid tribute to two great masters, Angelopoulos and Fellini. As regards Miss Violence, in a competition full of violence, murders, rapes and blood, the psychological violence, which is presented here with intelligence in a dramatic crescendo, was the unexpected element that made the difference. Because what you can find behind the door of a normal and maybe banal middle-class claustrophobic apartment, will shock on the screen probably more of any violent crime. This is a story of a normal grandfather, who with scientific cynicism rules as a perverse dictator on the entire family. If anyone breaks his rules, the punishment will be fast and may be performed in sadistic way by another member of the family. The breaking point will be the suicide of the granddaughter who through this sacrifice will start a slow but unstoppable rebellion lead by courageous women. Avranas’ inspiration for this movie came from a true story in Germany. He said: ‘Real facts are even worse than what I put in the movie, but I also wanted to put the accent on the fact that these things could have happen everywhere. Then I don’t think that the financial crisis has a role on this.’ For sure, the money coming from the prostitution of the girls plays an important role by giving to the entire family a decent life standard. On the other hand, the focus of the movie is a family which is closed like a bunker. After that, as highlighted by Avranas, the external world, represented by the inefficient social services, can’t stop or impede this tragedy. The dramatic solution of this cruel puzzle is inside the family and in this case the murder is fully justified also by the big and convinced ‘zero tolerance’ applause from both press and public of Venice.
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