That said, it won’t be the same.

Daniele Luchetti’s family drama “Ties” received a sustained round of applause when it opened the festival on Wednesday night. But the Italian director said Thursday there was something off: Social distancing rules for the theater made viewers feel like they were in a “vacuum bubble” and dispersed the sound of the clapping at the end.

“I know very well how an audience reacts to a movie, both when they like and when they don’t like it,” Luchetti told The Associated Press after his film premiered. “This time the atmosphere was very unusual. Just the fact of not having a person on your side: I couldn’t turn and see a crowd of people either laughing or watching carefully.”

He said he heard the applause at the end, but said it was sparse, given every other seat was left empty. “It was an applause in a space with a different balance,” he said. But he conceded, “I believe we need to get used to this.”

Tilda Swinton, who stars in Almodovar’s short and received a Golden Lion Lifetime Achievement award, made the same point from the stage of the Lido’s main theater, saying she was overwhelmed seeing the eyes and ears of the audience (though not their mouths because they were all covered in masks.)

“When I ask myself how I might adequately express my gratitude for this honor, words fail me,” she said. “But I think I can tell you something of what it means to be here with you tonight: What it means to be in a room with living creatures at a big screen. What it means to be about to see a film, in Venice.