While the Italian government pushed for the success of state sponsored films such as Gallone’s Scipio Africanus from 1937, the international community disapproved of the propagandistic use of cinema to create support for Benito Mussolini and his government.  At the 1937 Venice Film Festival, Scipio Africanus and German director Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia of 1937 both received the Mussolini Cup. As a sign of protest British and American jurors walked out of the festival before the Mussolini Cup was awarded; they were angered by the Fascist overtones of Gallone’s film and the loose adherence to Festival guidelines for Olympia a nonfiction film and thus was not eligible for the prize.  With delegates becoming intolerant of the Fascist government’s increasing influence on the Venice Film Festival, other film festivals in cities such as Cannes and Berlin began to emerge. One French participant in the 1938 Venice Film Festival, Philippe Erlanger, called for a Festival of the Free World (FIF) and stated that:

The major American, English, and French film companies would be happy not to return to Venice… If, therefore, the Venice Festival should no longer have the same success and be replaced by a similar organization in another country, it would be desirable that France be called on to take advantage of this.[1]

Rather than creating a Festival of the Free World, Cannes held its first film festival in 1946 and sought to break away from the “progressive” nature of the Venice Festival.  Post-World War II Venice struggled to recover due to its poor relationship with the United States, England, and France, all three of which were the largest producers and distributors of film.  Having just ended a war against countries who were also leaders in the film industry, countries such as the United States still viewed Italy and Germany as corrupt entities and avoided excessive interaction.

Official Poster,Leblanc, 1946,  http://www.festival-cannes.fr

In 1946, organizers from both festivals met and signed an agreement stating that the Cannes Festival would always be held in the spring while the Venice festival would be held annually in late summer (August).  The contractual agreement was put in place to prevent overlap in competition and allowed directors to enter films for competition in Cannes during the spring for their productions that would later be released to the general in theaters worldwide during the summer, and the Venice festival was used for films that would later be released during the fall and winter months.

At the time the premiere of Death in Venice in 1971, no awards were being assigned at the Venice Film Festival.  According to the Biennale, no awards were assigned at the Venice Festival between 1969 and 1979 because:

The festival still had a statue dating back to the fascist era and could not side-step the general political climate.  1968 produced a dramatic fracture with the past… as an effect of the dissent, prize giving was abolished in 1968.[2]

Twenty-five years after the end of World War II, Venice continued to feel the effects of the war on its Festival and unrelentingly tried to restore its popularity and prestige back to the Pre-War era.  The rise of film festivals around the world increased greatly after the war pressuring the pre-existing festivals to come up with new and enticing incentives for attendees.  The Venetian response was to open the film festival for a wider audience and remove the competitive nature of the annual event in order to spark the interest of up-and-coming directors.