Politics and relationships dominate the Giornate sidebar, including 10 titles playing in Competition for a jury led by Joanna Hogg.
Teenage girls are at the heart of Johanne Gomez Terrero’s Sugar Island (Patra Spanou) and Brazilian filmmaker Marianna Brennand’s debut fiction feature Manas (Bendita Film Sales).
Also in Competition is Rusudan Glurjidze’s The Antique (MPM Premium) set in St Petersburg during the illegal deportation of Georgians. Mongolian director Xiaoxuan Jiang explores whether agrarianism and capitalism can be untied in To Kill A Mongolian Horse.
Sanatorium Under The Sign Of The Hourglass (The Match Factory) is a supernatural tale by the Quay brothers about a man visiting his dying father. A father-and-son relationship also features in Jan-Willem van Ewijk’s Alpha as the pair try to survive the Alps.
Romantic relationships take centre stage in Kohei Igarashi’s Japanese and French co-production Super Happy Forever (Bac Films International), centred on a man who revisits the place he and his late wife first met; and Shahab Fotouhi’s Boomerang (Cercamon) is a sociological study of relationships in modern Tehran. Produced by Barney Productions, French filmmaker Camille Lugan explores devout faith and fate in her debut The Book Of Joy.
The only Italian film in Competition sees Ciro De Caro return to Giornate degli Autori, after 2021’s Giulia, with Taxi Monamour (True Colours), in which two aimless women try to find themselves. Rosa Palasciano co-writes and stars with Yeva Sai.
Women’s stories are the focus of the documentaries screening in Special Events. Monica Taboada-Tapia’s Soul Of The Desert (Guerrero Films) follows an elderly trans wayuu woman who crosses Colombia to reconcile with her family, while Canadian popstar Peaches is the focus of Marie Losier’s Peaches Goes Bananas (Best Friend Forever). Claudia Varejao, Giornate degli Autori best director winner in 2022, explores the lives of refugee women living in Portugal in short Kora.
Hind Meddeb’s doc Sudan, Remember Us (Mad World) captures events in Khartoum in 2019 as mass protest triggers regime change, giving way to a military crackdown. Across the Indian ocean in Bali, Serbia’s Mladen Kovacevic considers the Possibility Of Paradise in this Horopter Film production.
Italian documentarian Federica Di Giacomo probes monogamy and polygamy in The Open Couple, produced by and starring Chiara Francini.
Italy also closes the sidebar with the Out of Competition Basileia (Luxbox). Isabella Torre’s debut follows archaeologists in Aspromonte who release mythological creatures.
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