Screen International continues its preview of this year’s Venice Film Festival (August 31-September 10) by picking out the highlights from independent sidebar Critics’ Week and the Giornate Degli Autori (formerly Venice Days) strand.
Critics’ Week
The 37th edition of Venice International Film Critics’ Week opens with an out-of-competition screening of French director Florent Gouëlou’s Three Nights A Week (international sales by Pyramide International), about a 29-year-old man in a heterosexual relationship who becomes obsessed with a flamboyant drag queen.
Closing film is Moroccan thriller Queens (Kinology) from debut feature director Yasmine Benkiran. The high-velocity drama follows three women fleeing cross-country with cops on their tail.
The competition itself has seven titles, all from different countries. Germany’s Alex Schaad presents his debut feature Skin Deep (Beta Cinema), about a young couple whose seemingly stable relationship is turned upside down when they visit a remote island together.
French director Philippe Petit’s Beating Sun (Pyramide International) features a landscape architect whose career threatens to stall. He hopes to redeem himself by creating a wild garden in a rundown city square.
Niccolo Falsetti, an Italian novelist as well as a filmmaker who has directed second unit for the Manetti brothers, presents drama Margini (Fandango), about young musicians in a Tuscan punk band.
Young Austrian filmmaker David Wagner has his drama Eismayer, about a tough army sergeant concealing the secret that he is gay. It is produced through Vienna-based Golden Girls Film Production.
Dusan Zoric and Matija Gluscevic present Have You Seen This Woman?, a Serbia-Croatia co-production about a middle‑aged woman undergoing a crisis of identity.
Stockholm-based writer/director Isabella Carbonell’s intense drama Dogborn (TrustNordisk) focuses on a pair of troubled twins searching for a better future. This is Carbonell’s debut feature after her well-received shorts including Brothers (2019), Maniacs (2016) and Boys (2015).
Finally, a young director reflects on his past, living and working in Medellin, Colombia, in Theo Montoya’s Anhell69. Wouter Jansen’s Vienna-based Square Eyes handles sales.
Giornate Degli Autori
Under artistic director Gaia Furrer, Giornate Degli Autori — formerly Venice Days, and now in its 19th edition — has scored a coup in recruiting revered French director Céline Sciamma to head its jury.
Screening out of competition on opening day is Mark Cousins’ The March On Rome (international sales by The Match Factory), his documentary about propaganda and the rise of fascism in Italy. It is one of several special events that include Sebastien Lifshitz’s documentary Casa Susanna (PBS International), about a secretive 1950s US community of cross-dressers, and Iranian director Jafar Najafi’s Alone, a documentary about a teenage boy in a rural village.
Other special events are Greta De Lazzaris and Jacopo Quadri’s Rai-backed We’re Here To Try, a doc about a stage project inspired by Fellini’s Ginger & Fred, and Corrado Ceron’s Olimpia’s Way (Fandango), a road movie featuring a ballroom dancing legend and her driver.
There is UK representation in the Giornate official selection with Georgia Oakley’s Blue Jean (Film Constellation), about a closeted PE teacher in 1980s Thatcherite Britain. It is backed by BBC Film and the BFI and stars Rosy McEwen, a Screen Star of Tomorrow 2022.
Historical epic The Last Queen (The Party Film Sales) by Adila Bendimerad and Damien Ounouri is a tale about a queen and a pirate set in 16th-century Algeria.
Canadian director Graham Foy presents his debut feature The Maiden (Celluloid Dreams) — a story about suburban teenagers on a day that starts perfectly but ends otherwise.
Venice regular Abel Ferrara is back with his latest Italian-made feature Padre Pio (Capstone) starring Shia LaBeouf, a historical drama about a monk who became a figure of hope to an impoverished people after the First World War.
Another prominent US director in this sidebar is Steve Buscemi with The Listener (Bankside Films), starring Tessa Thompson as a helpline volunteer. Closing the section, this screens out of competition.
Huang Ji and Ryuji Otsuka present Stonewalling (Good Move Media), an intense drama about an aspiring flight attendant who finds she is pregnant.
In Wolf And Dog (MPM Premium), Portuguese director Claudia Varejao presents a young woman brought up on an island in the Atlantic who learns new lessons about desire, freedom and sexuality.
A mother and her adolescent son are on the move, trying to stay ahead of scandal and disgrace, in Fyzal Boulifa’s Eurimages and BBC Film-backed The Damned Don’t Cry (Charades). Boulifa, a UK filmmaker of Moroccan descent, made his debut feature with UK indie Lynn + Lucy (2019).
The Beirut love affair between a Syrian refugee and an Ethiopian migrant worker is the focus of Wissam Charaf’s Dirty, Difficult, Dangerous (Intramovies), which officially opens the sidebar.
Hungarian-Romanian director Cristina Grosan’s Ordinary Failures (Totem) is about three women of different ages and backgrounds struggling for a place in life.
Sardinia-born Salvatore Mereu presents his 1950s-set rural drama Bentu (Pascale Ramonda), adapted from Antonio Cossu’s The Wind And Other Stories.
Profiles by Ellie Calnan, Ben Dalton, Tim Dams, Charles Gant, Jeremy Kay, Geoffrey Macnab, Lee Marshall, Wendy Mitchell, Orlando Parfitt, Jonathan Romney, Mona Tabbara, Silvia Wong
No comments yet