Movie lovers applauded Venice’s effort and the symbolic significance of the world’s oldest film festival charting the path forward.

“It’s a moment of rebirth for everyone, for the whole world,” said Emma Dante, the Italian director of the in-competition film “The Macaluso Sisters.” “This festival is really an important moment of encounter, of beginning to dream again and be together again, even with the norms and following all the safety protocols.”

Film writer Emma Jones said aside from “a few teething problems” with the online reservation system, the festival went off better than she expected.

“It feels safe in there, it feels socially distanced,” she said of the venues.

Jones noted that the lineup of films lacked the usual Hollywood blockbusters — think “La La Land,” and “The Shape of Water” — that have used Venice as a springboard to Oscar fame. While the festival featured films from Iran, India, Australia and beyond, it was heavily European.

“This is a COVID festival. There’s no use pretending anything else,” Jones said.

But she added: “It would feel really off-note, I think, to have had a red carpet with screaming fans and celebrities walking down it and people talking about who wore what. Twenty-twenty is not the year for those kind of discussions.”

Instead, she said, Venice focused on the integrity of the films and the diversity of the countries represented.

“We were lucky to receive a lot of submissions from all over the world, and apart from a few missing titles from the Hollywood major film studios, most of the countries are represented in Venice and the quality of the lineup is really very high,” said festival director Barbera.