Poster and opening sequence of Venezia 78 designed by Lorenzo Mattotti

Italian illustrator and author Lorenzo Mattotti is, for the fourth year in a row, the author of the image for the official poster, and for the third year in a row of the opening sequence for the Venice International Film Festival of La Biennale di Venezia.

The image chosen for the poster this year depicts “two people filming one another in a sort of dance, a playful duel – explains Lorenzo Mattotti – in a relationship mediated by the camera. It is a dance under the spotlights of a set, a movement of shared energies, a ritual of gazes. The image might be called Sguardi a confronto – A contest of gazes, at a time when the gaze is becoming more powerful as a new relationship between people. The two figures symbolize two different visions that meet and engage, examine and study one another, but are not in opposition: thanks to Cinema and its central role, creative, proactive”.

Lorenzo Mattotti lives and works in Paris. He began his career in the late 1970s as a comic artist and in the early 1980s founded the Valvoline group with other illustrators. In 1984 he created "Fuochi", which was greeted as an event in the world of comic art, and won important international awards. In cinema, he collaborated in 2004 on Eros by Wong Kar-Wai, Soderbergh and Antonioni, and was responsible for the presentation segments of each episode. He was a creative consultant for Pinocchio by Enzo D'Alò. In "Incidenti", "Signor Spartaco", "Doctor Nefasto" "L'uomo alla finestra" and many more books, all the way to "Stigmate" published in Italy by Einaudi, Mattotti's work has evolved as an extremely coherent constant. Today his books are translated around the world. He publishes in newspapers and magazines such as The New Yorker, Le Monde, Das Magazin, Suddeutsche Zeitung, Nouvel Observateur, Corriere della Sera and Repubblica. He has illustrated many books for children including "Pinocchio" and "Eugenio", which won the Grand Prix in Bratislava in 1993. He has held many solo exhibitions including an anthological exhibition at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome, at the FransHals museum in Haarlem and at the Musei di Porta Romana. He creates posters, covers, advertising campaigns and was the author of the poster for Cannes 2000 and the posters for the Estate Romana festival.

In May 2019, in the Un certain regard section of the Cannes Film Festival, he presented, to great acclaim, his first animated feature-length film as author and director, titled La famosa invasione degli orsi in Sicilia (The Bears' Famous Invasion of Sicily) inspired by the fable/apologue by Dino Buzzati.