Venice Critics Week, run in cooperation with The National Union of Italian Film Critics, has unveiled its list of titles for 2013.

This is the 28th edition of Critics’ Week in Venice. All are feature debuts in competition plus two special events.

The selections include Chilean feature The Quispe Girls about shepherd sisters, which counts Pablo Larrain and Juan de Dios Larrain as producers, and Italian comedy Zoran, My Nephew The Idiot starring Giuseppe Battiston as a winelover who has to indulge his nephew.

Also in the line-up is the two-part The Reunion by Swedish performance artist Anna Odell, about a class reunion; Africa-set White Shadow, which has Ryan Gosling as an executive producer; Salvation Army, about a young gay man in Casablanca; and Slovenian drama Class Enemy, about a school recovering from a student’s suicide.

Opening film The Art of Happiness is about two brothers in Naples and closing film Illiterate stars Gloria actress Paulina García.

The full list announced so far is:

In competition

  • Salvation Army (L’Armée du salut) by Abdellah Taïa (France-Morocco)
  • The Reunion (Återträffen) by Anna Odell (Sweden)
  • The Quispe Girls (Las niñas Quispe) by Sebastián Sepúlveda (Chile-France-Argentina)
  • Class Enemy (Razredni sovražnik) [pictured] by Rok Biček (Slovenia)
  • White Shadow by Noaz Deshe (Italy-Germany-Tanzania)
  • Zoran, My Nephew the Idiot (Zoran, il mio nipote scemo) by Matteo Oleotto (Italy-Slovenia)
  • Surprise film

Opening Film – Special Event Out of Competition

  • The Art Of Happiness (L’arte della felicità) by Alessandro Rak (Italy)

Closing Film – Special Event Out of Competition

  • Illiterate (Las analfabetas) by Moisés Sepúlveda (Chile)

“Our bet is to program films able to arouse interest and pleasure, bringing to the fore small works and young auteurs who need the visibility that only a section exclusively devoted to debut films and held within a big festival can guarantee,” said Francesco Di Pace.

Venice runs Aug 28 to Sept 7.

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