Venice Horizons and Horizons Extra includes titles from Selman Necar, Guy Nattiv, Zar Amir Ebrahimi, Luana Bajrami and Shinya Tsukamoto.
Horizons
Behind The Mountains (Tun-Belg-Fr-It-Saudi-Qat)
Dir. Mohamed Ben Attia
The third feature of Tunisian director Ben Attia follows a man fresh out of jail who sets out to find his son and take him on a journey to reveal an amazing discovery. Ben Attia’s Hedi won best first film at the Berlinale in 2016 and Dear Son premiered in Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes in 2018. It reunites the filmmaker with Majd Mastoura, who won Berlin’s best actor Silver Bear for Hedi. Previously titled Floating In A Vacuum, Behind The Mountains is produced by Tunisia’s Nomadis Image with Belgium’s Les Films du Fleuve and France’s Tanit Films.
Contact: Luxbox
City Of Wind (Fr-Mong-Port-Neth-Ger-Qat)
Dir. Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir
After winning best short at Venice and Toronto last year with Snow In September, Mongolian director Purev-Ochir returns to Venice with her feature debut, which was previously titled Ze after its main protagonist. The story follows the timid 17-year-old shaman who lives between two worlds, studying hard at school to succeed in modern Mongolia while communing with his ancestral spirit to help the community. The multiple-country international collaboration comprises Aurora Films (Return To Seoul), Guru Media, Uma Pedro No Sapato (Miguel Gomes’s films), Volya Films (A Land Imagined), 27 Films Production and VOO by Mobinet. Arizona Distribution has taken French rights.
Contact: Martin Gondre, Best Friend Forever
Dormitory (Turkey-Ger-Fr)
Dir. Nehir Tuna
Turkish writer/director Tuna makes his feature debut with this coming-of-age story. A Sundance Lab alumnus, he has written and directed seven short films, including prize-winning The Shoes, a prequel to Dormitory. Set in 1997, the feature centres on a 14-year-old boy who has trouble fitting in at a religious boarding school where he is sent to learn Muslim values. Dormitory is produced by Tanay Abbasoğlu of Turkey’s TN Yapım, and Dorothe Beinemeier of Germany’s Red Balloon, whose credits include Giornate degli Autori 2021 title The Stranger and Bruno Dumont’s Cannes Competition feature France from the same year.
Contact: Pyramide International
El Paraiso (It)
Dir. Enrico Maria Artale
After his rugby-themed debut The Third Half 10 years ago, which also screened in Horizons, Italian director Artale returns with a film about an intense mother-son rapport set in the badlands of Rome’s Fiumicino river port, not far from the scene of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s murder. Edoardo Pesce (Matteo Garrone’s Dogman) stars alongside Colombian former telenovela actress Margarita Rosa De Francisco in a film co-produced by Italy’s Ascent Film and Young Films with Rai Cinema.
Contact: Ascent Film
An Endless Sunday (It-Ger-Ire)
Dir. Alain Parroni
First-time director Parroni draws on his own experience of growing up in a carny family in the countryside just south of the Italian capital in a film described by Venice’s artistic director Alberto Barbera as “a story of nihilism and rebellion in the far outskirts of Rome… that will get people talking”. Developed in TorinoFilmLab’s ScriptLab workshop, An Endless Sunday features among its producers arthouse veteran Domenico Procacci (Fandango), fashion house scion Giorgio Gucci (Alcor) and German filmmaker Wim Wenders (Road Movies).
Contact: Fandango
Explanation For Everything (Hun-Slovakia)
Dir. Gabor Reisz
When announcing the Venice line-up, Alberto Barbera hinted that Explanation For Everything was a strong contender for its main Competition. Set during a summer in Budapest, the film centres on high-school student Abel struggling to focus on his exams, while realising he is hopelessly in love with his best friend Janka. Reisz’s previous feature Bad Poems (2018) premiered at Tallinn Black Nights and his first feature For Some Inexplicable Reason (2014) at Karlovy Vary. Explanation For Everything is produced by Julia Berkes, who has produced Reisz’s previous films as well as Kornel Mundruczo’s 2017 Cannes Competition title Jupiter’s Moon.
Contact: Films Boutique
The Featherweight (US)
Dir. Robert Kolodny
Cinematographer Kolodny makes his directing debut with The Featherweight, about real-life boxing champion Willie Pep who made a comeback four years after retiring in 1960. James Madio stars alongside Ruby Wolf, Keir Gilchrist, Stephen Lang and Ron Livingston. Kolodny worked on Laura Poitras’s 2022 Golden Lion winner and Oscar nominee All The Beauty And The Bloodshed. Produced by Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way, Golden Ratio Films, Blisspoint Entertainment and Pep Films, the picture is being sold by Cinetic Media.
Contact: Jason Ishikawa, Cinetic Media
For Night Will Come (Fr-Belg)
Dir. Céline Rouzet
Rouzet’s debut fiction feature is her follow-up to documentary A Distant Thud In The Jungle, which was about the clash in Papua New Guinea between locals and invading oil companies and tourists. Written by Rouzet and William Martin, the new film is set in a small town and follows an ostensibly normal, friendly family hiding their teenage son’s dark secret and thirst for blood. For Night Will Come (En Attendant La Nui) stars Elodie Bouchez, rising French star Céleste Brunnquell and Jean-Charles Clichet.
Contact: Playtime
Gasoline Rainbow (US)
Dirs. Bill Ross, Turner Ross
The Ross brothers make their Venice debut with a film about five adventurous small-town teenagers who drive a beat-up van across Oregon to the Pacific coast. Described by the experimental filmmakers as a “punk rock Wizard Of Oz”, it is likely to follow the style of their films Western, Tchoupitoulas and Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets — winners of prizes and acclaim at festivals including CPH:DOX and SXSW — and blur the lines between documentary and fiction. Gasoline Rainbow is produced by Department of Motion Pictures and MUBI, which has US rights, in association with XTR.
Contact: The Match Factory
Heartless (Braz-Fr-It)
Dirs. Nara Normande, Tião
Written and directed by Normande and Tião, Heartless (Sem Coração) charts the relationship between two teenage girls in a coastal village in Brazil over one summer. Produced by Brazil’s Cinemascópio, France’s Les Valseurs and Italy’s Nefertiti, the film melds fantasy and documentary in a tale of love, beauty and violence, and is based on the directors’ 2014 Cannes prize-winning short of the same name.
Contact: Samuel Blanc, The Party Film Sales
Hesitation Wound (Turkey-Sp-Rom-Fr)
Dir. Selman Nacar
Turkish filmmaker Nacar debuted with Between Two Dawns at San Sebastian in 2021, going on to win best film at Torino Film Festival. A law graduate who later studied (and now teaches) filmmaking at Columbia University in New York, his latest is about a criminal lawyer who must make a moral choice that will affect the lives of her hospitalised mother, the defendant she is representing in a murder case, and the judge. The film won work-in-progress prizes at both San Sebastian and Sarajevo’s industry strands last year.
Contact: Lorna Lee Torres, Magnolia Pictures International
Housekeeping For Beginners (N Mac-Pol-Cro-Ser-Kos)
Dir. Goran Stolevski
Stolevski’s assured feature debut, the folk horror You Won’t Be Alone, world premiered at Sundance last year, while his second, gay love story Of An Age, was picked up by Focus Features. The Australian-Macedonian director’s latest is a family drama about an unmaternal queer woman (Anamaria Marinca) forced by circumstances to raise her girlfriend’s two daughters alone.
Contact: Jan Naszewski, New Europe Film Sales
Invelle (It-Switz)
Dir. Simone Massi
Venice habitués will be familiar with the work of animator Massi via the posters and ‘blue rhino’ title clip he created for the festival from 2012-16. One of the last true stop-motion animators, he creates his films entirely by hand. Some 40,000 drawings went into his first full-length film, which tells the story of three children from rural families in Massi’s native Le Marche region at three different moments of the 20th century. The voice cast includes Toni Servillo, Marco Baliani and Luigi Lo Cascio.
Contact: Fandango
Paradise Is Burning (Swe-It-Den-Fin)
Dir. Mika Gustafson
Sweden’s Gustafson makes her fiction feature debut with this coming-of-age drama. In a working-class area of Sweden, 16-year-old Laura and her younger sisters get by on their own. When social services call a meeting, Laura knows they could be separated and taken into foster care, so sets out to find someone to impersonate their mother. Gustafson — whose credits include music documentary Silvana — co-wrote the script with Alexander Öhrstrand. The lead producer is Nima Yousefi of Hobab (Cannes 2021 selection Clara Sola).
Contact: Geremia Biagiotti, Intramovies
The Red Suitcase (Nepal-Sri Lanka)
Dir. Fidel Devkota
Berlin-based Nepalese filmmaker Devkota brings a PhD in visual media anthropology to his feature debut, based on events from local fables and myths. The story follows a truck driver who spends two days delivering something from Kathmandu airport to a remote mountain village, while a solitary figure wheels a red suitcase towards the same village. Producer Ram Krishna Pokharel’s credits include 2018’s The Red Phallus, which premiered at the Berlinale, and 2020’s Butterfly On The Windowpane, which played in Busan.
Contact: Anna Krupnova, Reason8 Films
Shadow Of Fire (Jap)
Dir. Shinya Tsukamoto
Marking his eighth feature at Venice, Japanese cult director Tsukamoto’s latest depicts war from the perspective of a child and explores the struggles of people living in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. The cast of Shadow Of Fire (Hokage) includes Shuri, Mirai Moriyama (Rage), Ouga Tsukao and Hiroki Kono (J005311). The filmmaker has been in Competition three times, including previous film Killing in 2018. He also won the Horizons prize for Kotoko in 2011.
Contact: Nikkatsu
Tatami (Georgia-US)
Dirs. Guy Nattiv, Zar Amir Ebrahimi
Tatami is co-directed by Amir Ebrahimi, who won Cannes 2022’s best actress prize for Holy Spider, and Nattiv, who directed Helen Mirren in biopic Golda and 2019 Oscar-winning short Skin. Notably, it is the first feature to be co-directed by Iranian and Israeli filmmakers. The picture comes at a time of protests in Iran and is intended to shine a spotlight on the ruling regime. Tatami is a political thriller that follows an Iranian female judoka and her coach as they face life-changing decisions during the judo world championships. Arienne Mandi and Amir Ebrahimi star; Keshet Studios produced.
Contact: Sofia Neves, WestEnd Films
Upon Open Sky (Mex-Sp)
Dirs. Mariana Arriaga, Santiago Arriaga
This is the feature debut of the daughter and son of Oscar-nominated screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga (Babel), who also competed at Venice with his first feature as director with The Burning Plain. The script by Guillermo blends elements of thriller, road movie and coming-of-age tale, and follows two teenage brothers attempting to track down the man responsible for their father’s death. It is produced by Argentina- and Spain-based K&S Films (Wild Tales, The Clan). Mariana’s first film, short En Defensa Propia, played in Horizons in 2015.
Contact: Film Factory Entertainment
Horizons Extra
Day Of The Fight (US)
Dir. Jack Huston
UK actor Huston (Boardwalk Empire, Kill Your Darlings) makes his directing debut with this feature about a boxer who, after falling from grace, looks back over his life while preparing for his first fight since release from prison. Produced by Productivity Media, Cysa Films, Akrasia Films, Shrink Media and First Love Films, the picture stars Michael Pitt, Nicolette Robinson, Joe Pesci, John Magaro and Ron Perlman.
Contact: CAA Media Finance
The Dreamer (Fr)
Dir. Anaïs Tellenne
Tellenne’s debut feature follows a one-eyed man and groundskeeper of a deserted mansion living a monotone existence until the estate’s heiress returns to shake things up. The film stars Raphaël Thiéry, recently seen in Pietro Marcello’s Cannes Directors’ Fortnight period drama Scarlet, and festival regular Emmanuelle Devos, last in Venice with 2019’s My Days Of Glory. Tellenne also wrote the script and the film is produced by France’s Koro Films alongside Micro Climat.
Contact: Be For Films
Felicità (It)
Dir. Micaela Ramazzotti
In her directing debut, Italian actress Ramazzotti plays a woman whose dream of becoming a film make-up artist is held back by her dysfunctional family. Produced by Sergio Leone’s daughter Raffaella and son Andrea of Leone Film Group offshoot Lotus Production, Felicità features on the technical side experienced cinematographer Luca Bigazzi and editor Jacopo Quadri. 01 Distribution will release on home turf in September.
Contact: Lotus Production
Forever-Forever (Ukr-Neth)
Dir. Anna Buryachkova
A coming-of-age drama, Forever-Forever is the feature debut of Ukrainian director Buryachkova. Set in late 1990s Kyiv (it filmed in the city just before the Russian invasion), this is billed as a story of the young and rebellious amid the ruins of the Soviet regime. During its development and production, Forever-Forever won prizes at the Ukrainian Films Now showcase at Cannes’ Marché du Film. It is produced through Ukrainian outlet DGTL RLGN (Digital Religion), and co-produced by Rinkel Film of the Netherlands.
Contact: Pluto Film
In The Land Of Saints And Sinners (Ire)
Dir. Robert Lorenz
This action thriller, about a retired assassin in a remote Irish village who is drawn into a lethal game of cat-and-mouse, stars Liam Neeson, Ciaran Hinds, Colm Meaney and Kerry Condon. It is Lorenz’s Venice debut, reuniting the US filmmaker with Neeson after 2021’s The Marksman. Facing East’s Markus Barmettler and Philip Lee produce alongside Geraldine Hughes and Terry Loane of Prodigal Films, with Facing East financing in collaboration with RagBag Pictures. Netflix has UK and Ireland rights.
Contact: (international) Bleiberg/Dimbort; (US) CAA Media Finance; United Talent
Pet Shop Days (US-It-Mex)
Dir Olmo Schnabel
Dario Yazbek Bernal and Jack Irv star alongside Willem Dafoe, Peter Sarsgaard, Emmanuelle Seigner, Jordi Molla and Maribel Verdu in the thriller debut of Schnabel (son of Julian) about two men whose love affair takes them into New York’s underbelly. Irv, Schnabel and Galen Core co-wrote and producers include Luca Guadagnino regulars Francesco Melzi d’Eril and Gabriele Moratti of MeMo Films, and Core and Schnabel with their company TWIN.
Contact: (international) WME Independent; (US) CAA Media Finance
Phantom Youth (Kos-Fr)
Dir. Luana Bajrami
At 22 years old, French-Kosovar filmmaker Bajrami is making waves on the international festival scene following her debut feature The Hill Where Lionesses Roar, which premiered in Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes in 2021. She returns to her Kosovo roots for a story about two girls who leave their remote village and head to university amid social and political upheaval and a country in turmoil on the eve of independence. Bajrami also stars in Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache’s Toronto title A Difficult Year and the French directing duo produced Phantom Youth (Bota Jonë) via their label Ten Films.
Contact: Manuel Pereira, Gaumont
The Rescue (Arg-US)
Dir. Daniela Goggi
The fourth feature from Goggi is produced by Paramount+ alongside Los Angeles and London-based Infinity Hill (Argentina, 1985) and Buenos Aires-based Rei Cine. Based on a memoir by journalist and author Martin Sivak, The Rescue follows Julio Levy, whose brother is kidnapped as soon as he returns to Argentina from political exile. Rodrigo de la Serna, Julieta Zylberberg and Andrea Garrote star. Goggi’s 2007 debut feature Vísperas premiered at San Sebastian.
Contact: Paramount+
Stolen (India)
Dir. Karan Tejpal
This thriller centres on two brothers who witness the kidnapping of a baby and work to help its mother, an impoverished tribal woman. Stolen marks the feature directing debut of Tejpal and is produced by Gaurav Dhingra, known for Pan Nalin’s Toronto 2015 title Angry Indian Goddesses, through his Mumbai-based outfit Jungle Book Studio. The cast is led by Abhishek Banerjee, star of Stree and Prime Video series Paatal Lok, Shubham and Mia Maelzer. It is the sole Indian title selected for the festival.
Contact: Charades
Profiles by Ben Dalton, Tim Dams, Patricia Dobson, John Hazelton, Rebecca Leffler, Lee Marshall, Emilio Mayorga, Wendy Mitchell, Michael Rosser, Mona Tabbara, Silvia Wong.
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