Venice Film Festival Shows the Strain

The quality of mercy, as Portia observes in the Merchant of Venice, is not strain'd - but much of this year's Venice film festival has become extremely strain'd.

Shows have started hours late, cinemas have been overbooked and anti-globalisation protesters and local film-makers have vociferously objected to the "Hollywood-isation" of the event.

The latest problem arose at the screening of the film version of the Merchant of Venice, in which Al Pacino plays Shylock: A computer error meant that there was no seat for Pacino, and although one was eventually found for him, the show started more than an hour late.

Other films have started so late that the audience began slow handclapping in frustration. Finding Neverland, the story of JM Barrie and Peter Pan, starring Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet, was only shown at 2.15am.

This year's festival is under the direction of Marco Mueller, who has pledged to make it more American. His fellow-organisers blamed the chaos on the renewed popularity of the world's oldest film festival. "We have put a Ferrari engine in a small, old Fiat 500 car," Davide Croff, the president of the Venice Biennale, which oversees the festival, told Reuters.

Visitors were less impressed. "In my entire life as a producer I've never seen anything like this at a festival, and for this reason I'm never coming back," Michael Lionello Cowan, the co-producer of the Merchant of Venice, told the Venice newspaper La Nuova.

Harvey Weinstein of Miramax, which is handling Finding Neverland, was also underwhelmed by the scheduling. "Welcome to the breakfast screening of Neverland," he told the audience. "This morning [Marco] Mueller will be serving the croissants and I'll be teaching him the meaning of timing. Then I'll drown him in the lagoon, with his feet encased in cement."

The festival, the opening of which was disrupted by anti-globalisation protesters, continues until September 11, when Sophia Loren will host the final event.

Protesters have promised more disruption - but it would seem that the organisers are outdoing them.