The Guardian amends Venice coverage after wrongly crediting Francesco Rosi with a film he did not direct

The Guardian has corrected two errors in its reporting on this year’s Venice Film Festival, acknowledging that Gianfranco Rosi — not the late Francesco Rosi — directed Below the Clouds, and that jury member Fernanda Torres’s first name was initially misspelled.

The mistakes appeared in an analysis piece published on September 8, examining the jury’s decision to award Jim Jarmusch’s Father Mother Sister Brother the Golden Lion over Kaouther Ben Hania’s Gaza docufiction The Voice of Hind Rajab. Within a review of overlooked titles, the article incorrectly attributed Below the Clouds to Francesco Rosi, who died in 2015, rather than to Gianfranco Rosi, the acclaimed documentary filmmaker behind Fire at Sea.

While the error may seem inconsequential — a slip between two directors sharing a surname — its resonance is wider. For readers without specialist knowledge of Italian cinema, the misattribution recast a contemporary work of climate reflection as the swansong of a figure from Italian neorealism. For industry professionals, it jarred as an obvious mistake, raising questions about editorial oversight.

The same piece also misspelled the first name of Brazilian actor and juror Fernanda Torres, later corrected in the online version. Taken together, the corrections highlight a recurring problem: when outlets stumble over details that are easily verifiable, they invite skepticism over their handling of more contested or complex subjects.

Audiences accept that cultural criticism is subjective. What they should not have to accept are factual lapses over who directed a film or how a juror’s name is spelled. These are the fundamentals. When they are wrong, the authority of the analysis itself — including judgments on whether a jury was “cowardly” or bold — becomes harder to credit.

The Guardian amended the article on September 7 and 8, with clear notes attached. Yet the impression lingers. If such basic errors pass into print unchecked, how can readers trust that reporting on more fraught questions — whether about Gaza, politics, or international law — has not suffered from similar lapses? Corrections restore the record, but they cannot entirely restore confidence.