La Biennale di Venezia Has a New President: Roberto Cicutto

On January 27th, 2020 the Minister for Cultural Heritage and Activities Dario Franceschini appointed Roberto Cicutto as the new president of La Biennale di Venezia. An era is ending because the former minister Baratta, in several terms, has been president of the Biennale for about twenty years.

Born in Venice in 1948, Roberto Cicutto established the production company Aura Film in 1978. Under this label and ten years later (1988), he won the Venice Film Festival Golden Lion thanks to Ermanno Olmi’s “The Legend of the holy drinker”. In 1984, with Luigi Musini, he established Mikado Film, a company with which he distributed and produced films of the most representative and talented Italian and international directors. In 1993, with Angelo Barbagallo, Nanni Moretti and Luigi Musini, he established the distribution company Sacher Distribuzione and with Ermanno Olmi and Luigi Musini, he became a partner of the production company Cinemaundici. In 2009, Roberto Cicutto became the director of The Business Street, the Film Market part of the International Rome Film Festival, and was named President of Cinecittà Luce. For several years, he was a member of the board of ACE (Atelier du cinéma européen), and Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia. He is member of the board of European Film Academy and since 2011 Cicutto has been CEO of Istituto Luce-Cinecittà, a state-owned company in charge of, among others, promoting Italian cinema in the world, managing the Cinecittà Studios and an archive, included in the Unesco’s Memory of the World Register.