Venice Film Festival--done and dusted

I'm not going to write too much because I have already written a blog at cine-vue.com and am about to write two long reports for Electric Sheep and Film-Philosophy. However, I will note that the winner was deserving, the quality was generally high, the disappointments were few and to some extent predictable. Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights was only good when it should have been brilliant: the sort of film that niggles, that you will insist is worth seeing without actually having the courage to recommend it to anyone. Aside from the major players who are already heading for general release, the smaller treats were films like the magical Vivan Le Antipodes! and the Canadian film Cafe del Flore  with a fantastic Vanessa Paradis.
A personal treat was getting to see Al Pacino and William Friedkin, or Billy Friedkin as I feel able to call him now. They were both in story telling moods and Billy even offered to sing a song.