“I have never accepted commitments, and I’ve always simply forged the cinema I wanted,” the Italian filmmaker Liliana Cavani once stated, and that fierce independence became the through-line of a career defined by audacious choices and a willingness to probe the deepest corners of human nature. At the Venice Film Festival, a tribute to Cavani’s more than six decades of work offers a clear window into why her work remains singular and influential. The festival’s focus underscores how her lifetime of storytelling has continually pushed boundaries, earning recognition that mirrors the intensity and complexity of the topics she has dared to confront. The portrait of Cavani stands in part as a mirror to a cinema that refuses easy categories and instead invites discomfort, reflection, and dialogue about power, memory, and the fragility of moral certainties.
The controversy her films have sparked is not a mere footnote. Early on, her 1965 work Philippe Pétain: The Trial of Vichy provoked sharp debate for its unflinching examination of power and collaboration during a dark chapter of European history. The piece did not shy away from naming complicity, and many audiences found the portrayal a direct challenge to sanitized historical narratives. A year later, Cavani turned to Francis of Assisi in a biography that would be reinterpreted in later iterations, weaving together spiritual inquiry, intense sensuality, and stark psychological exploration. The film’s provocative elements reinforced Cavani’s reputation for blending sacred imagery with raw human desire, a synthesis that would become a hallmark of her approach to storytelling.
In exploring religious and political authority, Cavani pushed further with Galileo in 1968 and a trio of other thought-provoking investigations. The Vatican’s attempted censorship highlighted how her cinema speaks to institutions that wield social during times of crisis. Through Cannibals (1969) and The Guest (1971), she examined mechanisms of control and domination, challenging audiences to confront the mechanisms by which groups and individuals enforce obedience. Milarepa (1973) continued this thread by interrogating the social function and consequences of violence, while The Night Porter (1974) turned a flashlight toward the complex and painful intersection of trauma, memory, and desire. The film’s entangled power dynamics, including a difficult historical memory, generated enduring discussions about representation, responsibility, and the ethics of spectatorship. Charlotte Rampling, who collaborated with Cavani in that period, became a symbol of the director’s ability to draw out uncomfortable truths about domination, guilt, and the long shadows cast by past abuses. In later years, Cavani’s work and performances in theater and opera sustained that same restless energy, inviting audiences to question prevailing norms and to view art as a space for critical examination rather than mere escape.
Beyond these milestones, Cavani continued to surface new ideas through projects that blend intimate human drama with grand, existential stakes. The most recent fictional endeavor, The Order of Time, centers on a circle of friends who confront themselves after the discovery that a meteorite could spell the end of the world. The premise situates personal reckoning against larger questions about fate, responsibility, and shared destiny. Even as age advances, Cavani maintains a stubborn belief in the possibility of film as a vehicle for thought rather than mere entertainment. Her philosophy is clear: cinema can shape consciousness and conversation, offering a space to confront fear, guilt, and the stubborn resilience of the human spirit. The sense that this may not be the last project is tempered by a grounded honesty—filmmaking, for Cavani, remains a vocation rather than a mere career, a way to map inner landscapes and external realities with equal acuity.