Lancia has taken centre stage at the 63rd Venice Film Festival, as the Italian brand is a major sponsor and is also ferrying the international movie stars right onto the red carpet using a fleet of specially prepared and liveried Thesis, Phedra and Musa models.

Ahead of the official unveiling of the eagerly-awaited "HPE" concept car in Venice tomorrow, the Lancia contingent - all in bi-colore paint finishes, with festival insignia emblazoned down the flanks, and carrying fluttering flags on either front wing (the national flag and the traditional logo of the Venice Biennial) - are centre stage as they whisk the movie stars up to the Venice Biennial at the famous Hotel Excelsior on the Lido. As Lancia are also celebrate their centennial anniversary this year, all the cars are carrying the "100" logo on the B-pillar.

The 63rd edition of the Venice Film Festival opened on August 30 and will run until September 9, 2006. The Festival is articulated according to the established outline: the Venezia 63 section presents the films competing for the Golden Lion, some of the most important works of the year screen Out of Competition, while the Orizzonti section provides a picture of new trends in cinema. The international short film competition Corto Cortissimo is also in the line-up of the festival.

The Lancia fleet are in busy action on the Lido, an island which forms the main land barrier between Venice and the open sea. For many years a succession of Doges made their way out to the shallow waters of the Lido to celebrate a the Ceremony of Venice's marriage to the sea by dropping a ring into the waters. Acknowledging the important role the sea has played in the history of Venice, and illuminating how Venice depends on the mercy of the sea for its continued survival.

At the very heart of the Film Festival, and in front of the myriad steps of the impressive Biennial building, Lancia have presented an immaculate 1957 Aurelia B24 America Convertible (1957), a truly stunning car which became a symbol of the young, carefree Italy of the 1960s, thanks to Dino Risi’s famous film Il Sorpasso (The Easy Life), and also with Vittorio Gassman and Jean-Louis Trintignant (1961). Alongside this historic beauty the "Nuova" Ypsilon waits for its unveiling under a shroud, the arrival of the facelifted model now just hours away.

The Venice Biennale has now for over a century been one of the most prestigious cultural institutions anywhere in the world. Ever since its foundation in 1895, it has been in the avant-garde, promoting new artistic trends and organising international events in the contemporary arts in accordance with a multi-disciplinary model which characterises its unique nature.
 

It is world-beating for the International Film Festival (61 editions), for the International Art Exhibition (50 editions) and for the International Architecture Exhibition (9 editions), and continues the great tradition of the Festival of Contemporary Music (48 editions) and Theatre (36 editions), now flanked by the Festival of Contemporary Dance (2 editions). The Biennale promotes numerous publishing initiatives in the same sectors. Its visibility is high in all the media. Through the ASAC (Historic Archives of Contemporary Arts), the Biennale conserves the documentation of its history. The Foundation's venues, which receive an increasingly vast international public (320,000 visitors per annum), are not owned by it but are made available by law by the Venice City Council - the Giardini di Castello (visual arts and architecture), the Palazzo del Cinema and the Palazzo del Casinò on the Lido (cinema) - or are obtained through plurennial agreements with the Italian Navy and the Inland Revenue - the Arsenale (visual arts and architecture), the Teatro alle Tese and the Teatro Piccolo Arsenale (dance, music, theatre).

The legislative reform decree of January 2004 has transformed the Biennale into a Foundation, with a new board of directors chaired by Davide Croff. The challenge of the new Foundation lies in reviving the potential of the Biennale and its unique nature as a centre of attraction of outstanding excellence not only during the major exhibitions, but also for artistic production in every sector, throughout the year. For this, prestigious private partners are being sought to set up a permanent 'home', its own venue which reinforces and establishes the identity of the Biennale, and which can at the same time become a permanent exhibition centre, a laboratory of culture, the arts, and ideas which reach the whole world from Venice.

The reform has been backed by the Minister of Culture, Giuliano Urbani, with the aim of achieving greater managerial efficiency, but above all a smoother integration and the ingress of private partners, with the intention of increasing the Foundation's assets. For this reason, the financial model to which the new Foundation aspires is that of the US cultural sector, in which 30% of the budget comes from private sponsorships and payments, 30% from its own earnings, 30% from public contributions and 10% from receipts from the increase in assets.