Summary
- “Ridateci i soldi” is the Venice Film Festival’s unofficial wall for audience criticism.
- In 2026 it filled up for the first time in the initiative’s 30-year history, with thousands of messages.
- “The Echo Chamber” drew the largest number of negative comments.
- Cristian Poletti won the Coppa Codacons for the sharpest and funniest audience remark.
On Venice’s Lido, the festival’s harshest “critic” has neither accreditation nor a column: it is a wooden wall where audiences write the things that would never fit inside a press release.
“Ridateci i soldi” —“give us our money back”— returned at the 83rd Venice Film Festival and broke its own record in 2026. On September 7, Codacons announced that the available space had filled up for the first time in the initiative’s roughly 30-year history, after thousands of messages about films, directors, actors and the festival itself.
This year’s festival ran from September 2 to 12, as confirmed by La Biennale di Venezia, under director Alberto Barbera. Inside that world of red carpets, prizes and intense buzz —already mapped out in the Venice 2026 festival programme— the wall acted as an analogue public escape valve for anyone who wanted to say the exact opposite of the hype.
A wall designed to puncture the hype
The idea came from Italian TV presenter Gianni Ippoliti and began in the late 1990s as a reaction to the sense that festival reviews were becoming excessively enthusiastic. In The Guardian’s report from the Lido, Ippoliti argued that it simply cannot be true that every one of the dozens of films shown at a festival is a masterpiece.
The mechanism remains deliberately simple: visitors write short reviews, jokes, complaints or sarcastic remarks on sheets of paper and pin them to the wall. Positive messages are allowed, but the tradition has been built around bad screenings, disappointments and the one-liners that would normally stay in the queue outside a cinema.
The sharpest negative comment competes for the Coppa Codacons, a wooden sculpture by Ferdinando Codognotto. In 2026 the award was presented in the presence of Barbera and Ippoliti, showing that this counter-criticism is not completely outside the festival ecosystem, even though it is not part of Venice’s official awards.
In 2026 the wall filled up before the festival ended
What made this year’s story stand out was the volume. Codacons said thousands of messages had completely exhausted the available space for the first time in the 30-year history of “Ridateci i soldi”. The pressure was so great that the Coppa Codacons ceremony was moved to September 8, four days before the festival closed.
That meant the wall delivered its “verdict” while the festival was still running. At an event where impressions are often measured in applause, coverage and early awards buzz, the image of a physical wall with no room left for comments became its own eloquent sign that audiences wanted a place in the conversation.
The film that took the heaviest fire
According to the final Coppa Codacons result, Andrea Pallaoro’s “The Echo Chamber” drew the largest number of negative comments. Other films that attracted substantial criticism included Alina Marazzi’s “La ragazza con la Leica” and Gianni Amelio’s “Nessun dolore”.
Cristian Poletti won the contest. His joke focused on the repeated bathroom scenes in “The Echo Chamber”, playfully renaming it “The Echo Bathroom” and comparing the film to a shampoo commercial. The force of this kind of criticism is not detailed argument, but the economy of a line that can travel much farther than a multi-page review.
The Guardian also recorded other examples in the same spirit: jokes about Luca Guadagnino’s seven-hour “Joie de Vivre”, comments about “DAU”, wordplay around Werner Herzog’s “Bucking Fastard” and a sarcastic plea for Danny Boyle to return to films about drugs. This is not a representative poll; it is a space where a sharp takedown is rewarded.
It does not judge only the films
The wall is not limited to aesthetic criticism. In 2026 it also carried complaints about the cost of being on the Lido, transport, accommodation, queues, seating and practical details around screenings. In other words, it works both as a cinema comment board and as an unofficial complaints box for a major cultural event.
That is also what makes it more interesting than another ratings chart. Visitors are not merely asked to give a film a number of stars; they can comment on the whole festival experience. “Ridateci i soldi” therefore captures not just what audiences liked or disliked on screen, but how an event often presented through prestige and glamour actually feels on the ground.
Why image-makers and filmmakers should care
For filmmakers, photographers and people covering festivals, the wall is a useful reminder that the image of success and audience reception are not the same thing. A strong red carpet, a long ovation or a wave of positive first reactions can create a narrative, but they do not erase the experience of viewers who leave a screening disappointed.
Its value should not be overstated either. Participants self-select, negativity is more likely to produce a joke, and the contest rewards sarcastic precision. The wall is excellent as a cultural thermometer and a visual symbol of audience reaction, not as a scientific measure of quality.
What we think
“Ridateci i soldi” has viral power precisely because it is analogue. At a time when public reaction is measured in likes, ratings and algorithmic feeds, a wooden wall covered in handwritten notes can feel almost more authentic. It does not replace criticism or decide which films will endure, but it offers a rare counterweight to the machinery of festival hype —and in 2026 it did so loudly enough that there was literally no space left.
Frequently asked questions
What is “Ridateci i soldi”?
It is a roughly three-decade-old parallel initiative at the Venice Film Festival where viewers and visitors post handwritten comments, reviews and complaints about films and the event itself.
Who created the wall?
The initiative was created by Gianni Ippoliti in the late 1990s as a reaction to overly positive festival criticism.
What happened in Venice in 2026?
For the first time in the initiative’s roughly 30-year history, the available wall space filled completely with thousands of messages. The Coppa Codacons was awarded on September 8, before the festival ended on September 12.
Which film received the most negative comments?
Codacons said Andrea Pallaoro’s “The Echo Chamber” attracted the largest number of negative comments on the 2026 “Ridateci i soldi” wall.
Is the Coppa Codacons an official Venice Film Festival award?
No. It is a parallel initiative run by Codacons and Gianni Ippoliti. In 2026, however, Venice Film Festival director Alberto Barbera took part in the award presentation.
