Three years ago, in August 2020, at the height of the COVID pandemic in Europe, as we were all getting used to words like "social distancing" or the "R" reproduction rate, the Venice Film Festival defied the odds and held an in-person celebration of cinema.

It was an odd affair — temperature checks outside hotels, masking in the screening rooms — but it was a sign of hope for film fans. As movie houses were being shut and forecasters were predicting the death of the theatrical experience, the world's oldest film festival was still going, still showing the best new cinema in the world in dark rooms filled with (socially distanced) strangers collectively experiencing what the French call the seventh art.