The Music of Venice 2025 not to be missed

It was an edition of Venice very concentrated on the story of the musical world that just ended at Lido: more than composing new pieces and soundtracks, however Music told herself in a myriad of musical theme films, mostly of a documentary mold. We already told you about the Triplete di Doc dedicated to three great names of Italian music – D’Angelo, De Gregori, Pelù – who marked the final day of the competition. Nino D’Angelo then gave the Biennale public a surprise live performance during the closing ceremony and the award ceremony of the winners. The Neapolitan singer performed on the notes of “hate and lacreme”. A non -random choice, on the contrary, a clear declaration of intent since the song reads “if it wins or if it loses the war is a wrong thing”. At the end of the exhibition D’Angelo dedicated the piece to the children in Gaza, Ukraine and in all the places in the world where they are not safe due to the current conflicts.

The best musical documentaries seen in Venice 2025

At least two other international titles that have chosen must then be added to the three Italian musical documentaries The non -fiction approach to tell important moments and icons of musical history. The first is Robert Gordon’s “Newport & The Great Folk Dream”, presented out of competition. In just ninety minutes the Doc returns to the historic US folk music festival which marked its authentic political connotation and its social impact, which over time has been partially diluted by the perception of the genre as a sort of compendium of nostalgic ballet set in the great American west. Gordon has dug in private archives and in the most inaccessible places to the general public to recover the unpublished or difficult to find performances – the inevitable Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Pete Seger but also unknown Banjo players from the mining areas, gospel singers from Georgia and even Canadian fishermen – reconstructing authenticly a complete portrait of what it really meant to be subjected to Newport, in contact with the energy of a young generation that dreamed of change. The other musical documentary that promises to be not to be missed is “Broken English “; A portrait of the singer -songwriter Marianne Faithfull who wants to return her unique and radical character starting from the form used. In fact, the project is articulated as a classic interview with halfhake, but to ask questions to Faithfull and its valuable guests (Suki Waterhouse, Beth Orton, Courtney Love, Jehnny Beath, Nick Cave, Warren Ellis) are the actor George McKay and Tilda Swinton as delegates from the Ministry of Don’t forget. A Ardito narrative expedient that helps the directors Jane Pollard and Iin Forsyth to create a feature film not on Marianne Faithfull but made with Marianne Faithfull, representing what her personality the artist has transformed into art.

The soundtracks and the cult songs of Venice82

In competition then another very bold musical project should be reported: “The Testament of Ann Lee” by the director Mona Fastvold, Which mixes biographical genre, historical reconstruction and musical to tell the story of the founder of the religious sect of the Shakers. The soundtrack of the film is signed by that Daniel Blumberg who a year ago won the Oscar for “The Brutalist” and is a fixed collaborator and intimate friend of the artistic couple and Vita Fastvold – Corbet. Behind the film there is a great job of musical research, because the songs singers from Amanda Seyfried and from the rest of the cast are based on A very extensive sample of hymns of the Shakersect for which music, dance and movement of the body (from name) play a very important role in daily prayers and in community life. The tireless Daniel Blumberg then signed another soundtrack among those of the films in competition in this edition: that of the documentary dedicated to an alternative and secret Naples discovered by Gianfranco Rosi in “Under the clouds”. On the Italian cinema front we have already talked about the incursion of Guè Pequeno and Shablo in the Utopian and imaginary Quirinale told by Paolo Sorrentino in “La Grazia”. In the end Toni Servillo also brought home the Volpi Cup Award for the best men’s interpretation. Who knows if Alexander Payne and the other jurors have not been affected, as well as by the actor performance, also by his rapage the song by Gué “The girls cry”. Also on the Italian cinema front, it is worth mentioning the beautiful Coming of School Age of Laura Samani presented in the Orizzonti section. “A year of school” tells the friendship between a Swedish girl who moves for the last year of superiors to an Itis Triestino institute and three young Italian classmates who a little want her as a friend, a little dream of becoming more intimate with her. The film is characterized by being an emotional journey also from a musical point of view, By fading old musical glories from that era but also from previous years. The soundtrack brings together a repertoire of pieces that immediately make the nostalgia rise: from the Prozac+ to the three cheerful dead boys sung at the top of the car, complete with shirts of the band worn by one of the protagonists. The most memorable music scene of the edition is probably the one contained in Yorgos Lanthimos’ “bugonia”, a director capable of using music also as a blunt object when necessary. It is the most extreme and violent sequence of the film in which the CEO of a pharmaceutical company played by Emma Stone is kidnapped by two solitary men and on the margins of society, convinced that she is actually an alien hostile to mankind. In the passage in question Emma Stone, the shaved head and the covered skin of a whitish cream, is tortured and subjected to long electroshock discharges while by the old stereo of its kidnappers it sounds like a “basketball” ball of the green day with that iconic “am i just paranoid or am i just stoned?”.