A biopic on legendary Greek opera singer Maria Callas starring Academy Award-winning actress Angelina Jolie, received a 10-minute standing ovation following its Venice Film Festival world premiere on Thursday, August 29.
Maria, directed by Pablo Larraín, is a creative imagining and psychological portrait of Callas who, after dedicating her life to performing for audiences around the world, decides finally to find her own voice, her own identity, and sing for herself. The biopic follows Callas during her final days in 1970s Paris.
Jolie, who plays the opera singer in the biopic, was present at the world premiere in Venice on Thursday alongside fellow cast members Pierfrancesco Favino and Alba Rohrwacher.
After the screening, the crowd inside the Sala Grande stood for ten-minutes and could be heard chanting Jolie’s name. The two-time Oscar nominee became emotional, shedding a tear as she walked down from the gallery to wave at the audience.
In her first public comments to the press about filming the biopic, Jolie said she spent roughly seven months preparing for the challenging role, work that found her training with opera singers and coaches to master the posture, breathing and movement of a singer of Callas’ caliber.
Diving deep into opera provided “therapy I didn’t realise I needed,” she told the press.
“I had no idea how much I was holding in and not letting out,” she continued. “So the challenge wasn’t the technical, it was an emotional experience to find my voice, to be in my body, to express. You have to give every single part of yourself.”
The world premiere of Maria comes after Netflix confirmed earlier this week that it had acquired distribution rights to the film.
Source: Hollywood Reporter.
