Dante Ferretti has created set designs for some of the foremost Italian directors (Fellini, Ferreri, Pasolini) as well as those internationally known (Jean-Jacques Annaud, Neil Jordan, Terry Gilliam). He collaborated with Martin Scorsese on seven films, the last of which after Gangs of New York being The Aviator, which brought him and his wife, Francesca Lo Schiavo, an Academy Award.

Born in Macerata, Italy in 1943, after high school with an artistic emphasis, he then moved to Rome to attend the Academy of Fine Arts. He became a friend to the great set designer of the 1960's, Luigi Scaccianoce, then made his debut in 1969 with the Pier Paolo Pasolini film, Medea, recreating the classical world with flavours of the Orient, where the film was shot. With Pasolini, Ferretti continued to work until the death of the director, collaborating on Decameron (1971), set in the sunny, mediterranean Medieval, Racconti di Canterbury (1972), Fiore delle mille e una notte (1974), where he once again shot the Orient in a manner outside the known stereotype, on to favouring a more contemporary reality in the scenery for Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma (1975).

During the same period, Ferretti began to work with other masters of Italian cinema, from Elio Petri (La classe operaia va in paradiso, 1971) to Luigi Comencini (Il gatto, 1978), from Ettore Scola (La nuit de Varennes -Il mondo nuovo, 1982) to Marco Ferreri, for whom he conceived the desolate America of Ciao maschio (1979) and also the self-destructive one of Storie di ordinaria follia (1981), moving on to Il futuro è donna (1984). In 1979, he started to work with Federico Fellini, giving life to the visions of the master from Rimini, and providing a fondamental contribution to the creation of his world. Together they realized some of the best films for each of them, from Prova d'orchestra (1979) to La voce della luna (1982).

Ferretti's grand career in international cinema took off with the Medieval, both realistic and symbolic, in The Name of the Rose (Il Nome della rosa, 1982) with Jean-Jacque Annaud. 1989 brought the first of his 8 Oscar nominations, for the baroque scenery of The Adventures of Münchausen (Le avventure del barone di Münchausen) by Terry Gilliam, and the following year he was again nominated for Hamlet (Amleto) by Franco Zeffirelli. Touching down in Hollywood, he became a master of period reconstruction, but not only that, also for diverse settings, out of the norms and always avoiding the traps of convention and repetition. In 1994, he designed Interview of the Vampire (Intervista col vampiro, Oscar nomination) by Neil Jordan, in lavish detail set between Europe and America of the 1700s. However it was to be with Martin Scorsese that Ferretti would develop his longest and closest collaboration, from the refined suggestions of nobility in The Age of Innocence (L'età dell'innocenza, 1993), to the cruel light of Las Vegas in Casinò (1995), up to the bewitching exoticism of Kundun (1997, Oscar nomination) and to the bloody counterfeit world of turn of the century New York in Gangs of New York (2002, Oscar nomination).

Dante Ferretti is currently on the new Brian De Palma set, The Black Dahlia, adapted from a novel by James Ellroy, set in the 1940s. "I had to reconstruct the Los Angeles of the '40s, and I did it in Bulgaria" - declared Ferretti - "Fortunately Fellini taught me that there are no impossible undertakings".

The President of the Biennale, Davide Croff, and the Director of the Mostra, Marco Müller, also announced that Francesca Ghermandi will pen the opening credits of the 62. Mostra, a cheerful convergence of comic strip and animation, which will be the first "pop art" opener in the history of the Mostra.

Francesca Ghermandi was born in 1964 in Bologna, where she lives and works. Daughter of the sculptor Quinto and the painter Romana Spinelli, she began drawing as a child. After taking a diploma in classical studies, in 1983 she enrolled in the Faculty of Architecture, while at the same time following a course in strip cartoons held by the group Valvoline and by Andrea Pazienza, thus revealing to her the world of contemporary comics. The first publications (1985-87) are of clear lines, in black and white, and are essentially made up of illustrations and short comics. Since the end of the '80s, she has been collaborating with various magazines with both colour drawings and periodical stories, later collected into volumes. Often the characters or the settings created for illustrations are used in successive comic strips and, vice versa, ideas that come from within the comics become transformed into illustrations, making the recent works a synthesis of that which preceded it. Since the mid-1990s she has been experimenting with graphite drawings, giving life to the character of Pastil, with the stories being collected into three books between 1998 and 2001. During the same period, she started working on another comic, Bang! Sei morto, released in a volume in 2003. She has participated in the principle comic strip expositions and has been published in numerous well-known titles, such as "Reporter", "Frigidaire", "Il manifesto" and "Il gambero rosso".

For the 62nd Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica, the director, Marco Müller, confirmed that he will present an official selection of no more than 60 films. This line had already been proposed by Müller himself immediately following the previous Mostra, and approved by the board of the venice Biennale on February 9. "We decided to make the program more comprehensible" - explained Müller - "so as to avoid confusion among the components, which must remain clear and accessible, so as to best express their innate richness." At the next Mostra (August 31 - September 10 2005) there will be only three principle sections: In Competition, Out of Competition and Horizons. "Digital cinema will cut across all the sections, with projections in HD (high definition) in 2K and in 4K", the Director of the Festival went on to say, "and the most spectacular night-time programming will come under the section Out of Competition. Finally, Horizons, will consist of at least six feature-length documentaries. Alongside the official selection this year will be the Secret History of Asian Cinema, dedicated to the "invisible" cinema of the Far East (China, Hong Kong, Japan, India)".