73rd Venice International Film Festival Lineup

The complete line-up of the 73rd Venice International Film Festival was announced during the press conference that took place on Thursday, July 28th in Rome. The 73rd Venice International Film Festival will take place on the Lido from August 31st to September 10th, directed by Alberto Barbera and organized by the Biennale di Venezia chaired by Paolo Baratta.

Believe must of us were expecting a very strong lineup this year as already knew the films that didn't make it to the other two main competitive festivals and yes, there is no disappointment, the lineup is massive, strong and many "gods" of cinema will grace Venice with their latest oeuvres. Bravo!!!

Still there are some surprises, besides those already mentioned in previous posts, like for example, Isabelle Huppert in a short film in the Orizzonti section, Keaunu Reeves, Diego Luna and Jim Carrey in the same movie (?!) and film is about cannibals (!!!), or the ones definitively not positive like for example, where latest films by Kim Ki-Duk or Katell Quillévéré ended (sigh).

But the best news, the one no one will take away from me is my glorious joy of being able to see Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander walking the red carpet (lol). On other news, both Amy Adams as Natalie Portman are in two movies, Amy in two in competition and Natalie one in competition and one out of competition.

According to the press release there are 55 new feature films in the Official Selection divided as follows: 19 in Venezia73 Competition, 17 in Out of Competition (7 of which are documentaries) and 19 in Orizzonti. There are 16 new short films, 16 in Orizzonti (14 in competition and 2 out of competition). In Venice Classics there are 20 feature films, 1 restored short film and 10 documentaries about cinema. Most interesting is to find that organizers viewed 2,901 films of which 1,468 are feature films and 1,433 short films.

Venezia 73
International competition of feature films, presented as world premieres

Opening Film: La La Land, Damien Chazelle, USA
Ang Babaeng Humayo (The Woman Who Left), Lav Diaz, Philippines
Arrival, Denis Villeneuve, USA
Brimstone, Martin Koolhoven, Netherlands, Germany, France, UK and Sweden
El Ciudadano Ilustre, Mariano Cohn and Gastòn Duprat, Argentina and Spain
(*) El Cristo Ciego, Christopher Murray, Chile and France
Frantz, François Ozon, France and Germany
Jackie, Pablo Larraín, USA and Chile
La Región Salvaje (The Untamed), Amat Escalante, Mexico, Denmark, France, Germany and Norway
Les Beaux Jours d'Aranjuez (The Beautiful Days of Aranjuez), Wim Wenders, France and Germany
Na mliječnom putu (On the Milky Road), Emir Kusturica, Serbia, UK and USA
Nocturnal Animals, Tom Ford, USA
Piuma, Roan Johnson, Italy
Questi Giorni, Giuseppe Piccioni, Italy
Spira Mirabilis, Massimo D'Anolfi and Martina Parenti, Italy and Switzerland (documentary)
Рай Rai (Paradise), Andrei Konchalovsky, Russia and Germany
The Bad Batch, Ana Lily Amirpour, USA
The Light Between Oceans, Derek Cianfrance, USA, Australia and New Zealand
Une vie (A Woman's Life), Stéphane Brizé, France and Belgium
Voyage of Time, Terrence Malick, USA and Germany (documentary)

Venezia 73 Jury
President: Sam Mendes, director, UK
Nina Hoss, actress, Germany
Chiara Mastroianni, actress, France
Joshua Oppenheimer, director, USA
Lorenzo Vigas, director, Venezuela
Zhao Wei, actress, China
Laurie Anderson, artist, singer, director and writer, USA
Giancarlo De Cataldo, magistrate, writer, playwright and screenwriter, Italy

Out of Competition
Important works by directors already established in previous editions of the Festival

Closing Film: The Magnificent Seven, Antoine Fuqua, USA
A Jamais (Never Ever), Benoît Jacquot, France and Portugal
American Anarchist, Charlie Siskel, USA
Assalto al Cielo, Francesco Munzi, Italy (documentary)
Austerlitz, Sergei Loznitsa, Germany (documentary)
Gantz:O, Yasuhi Kawamura, Japan (animation)
Hacksaw Ridge, Mel Gibson, USA and Australia
I Called Him Morgan, Kasper Collin, Sweden and USA (documentary)
L'uomo che non cambiò la storia (The Man Who Didn't Change History), Enrico Caria, Italy (documentary)
밀정 Miljeong (The Age of Shadows), Kim Jee Woon, South Korea
Monte (The Mountain), Ammir Naderi, Italy, USA and France
One More Time with Feeling, Andrew Dominik, UK
Our War, Bruno Chiaravalloti, Claudio Jampaglia, and Benedetta Argentieri, Italy and USA (documentary)
Planetarium, Rebecca Zlotowski, France and Belgium
Safari, Ulrich Seidl, Austria and Denmark (documentary)
The Bleeder, Philippe Falardeau, USA and Canada
The Journey, Nick Hamm, UK
The Young Pope (Episodes I and II), Paolo Sorrentino, Italy, France, Spain and USA (TV miniseries)
Tommaso, Kim Rossi Stuart, Italy

Check available info and trailers @MOC

Orizzonti
An international competition dedicated to films that represent the latest aesthetic and expressive trends in international cinema

Feature Films
(*) Boys in the Trees, Nicholas Verso, Australia
Dawson City: Frozen Time, Bill Morrison, USA and France (documentary)
(*) Die Einsiedler, Ronny Trocker, Germany and Austria
(*) 愚行録 Gukôroku, Kei Ishikawa, Japan
Home, Fien Troch, Belgium
(*) Il più grande sogno (I Was a Dreamer), Michele Vannucci, Italy
(*) Kékszakállú, Gastón Solnicki, Argentina
Koca Dünya (Big Big World), Reha Erdem, Turkey
King of the Belgians, Peter Brosens and Jessica Woodworth, Belgium, Netherlands and Bulgaria
Ku Qian (Bitter Money), Bing Wang, Hong Kong and France (documentary)
Laavor et Hakim (Through the Wall), Rama Burshtein, Israel
Liberami, Federica di Giacomo, Italy and France (documentary)
مالاریا Malaria, Parviz Shahbazi, Iran
(*) Maudite Poutine, Karl Lemieux, Canada
Réparer les vivants (The Heart), Katell Quillévéré, France and Belgium
São Jorge (Saint George), Marco Martins, Portugal and France
(*) Tarde Para La Ira (The Fury of a Patient Man), Raúl Arévalo, Spain
White Sun, Deepak Rauniyar, Nepal, USA, Qatar and Netherlands

Special Screening Out of Competition
Dark Night, Tim Sutton, USA

Short Films
500,000 Pee (500,000 Years), Chai Siris, Thailand, 15'
Amalimbo, Juan Pablo Libossart, Sweden and Estonia, 15' (animation)
Ce qui nous éloigne, Wei Hu, France, 18'
Colombi, Luca Ferri, Italy, 20'
Dadyaa, Bibhusan Basnet and Pooja gurung, Nepal and France, 17'
Good News, Giovanni Fumu, South Korea and Italy, 17'
La Voz Perdida, Marcelo Martinessi, Paraguay, Venezuela and Cuba, 11'
Le Reste est l'oeuvre de l'homme, Doria Achour, France and Tunisia, 14'
Midwinter, Jake Mahaffy, USA and New Zealand, 17'
Molly Bloom, Chiara Caselli, Italy, 20'
On The Origin of Fear, Bayu Prihantoro Filemon, Indonesia, 12'
Prima Noapte (First Night), Andrei Tanase, Romania and Germany, 17'
Ruah, Flurin Giger, Switzerland, 18'
Samedi Cinema, Mamadou Dia, Senegal, 11'
Srečno, Orlo! (Good Luck, Orlo!), Sara Kern, Slovenia, Croatia and Austria, 14'
Stanza 52, Maurizio Braucci, Italy, 13"

Orizzonti Jury
President: Robert Guédiguian, director, France
Jim Hoberman, film critic and historian, USA
Nelly Karim, actress, Egypt
Valentina Lodovini, actress, Italy
Moon So-ri, actress, South Korea
José Maria (Chema) Prado, film critic and scholar, Spain
Chaitanya Tamhane, director, India

Check available info and trailers @MOC

Cinema nel Giardino
The new section with films, talks, and visions under the Casino

Franca: Chaos and Creation, Francesco Carrozzini, Italy and USA (documentary)
그물 Geumul (The Net), Kim Ki-Duk, South Korea
In Dubious Battle, James Franco, USA
Inseparables, Marcos Carnevale, Argentina
L'Estate Addosso (Summertime), Gabriele Muccino, Italy
My Art, Laurie Simmons, USA
Robinù, Michele Santoro, Italy (documentary)
The Secret Life of Pets, Chris Renaud and Yarrow Cheney, USA (3D animation)

Biennale College - Cinema
Higher-education training workshop for the development and production of micro-budget feature-length films

La Soledad, Jorge Thielen Armand, Venezuela
Mukti Bhawan (Hotel Salvation), Shubhashish Bhutiani, India
Orecchie (Ears), Alessandro Aronadio, Italy
Una Hermana (One Sister), Sofia Brockenshire, Argentina

Special Screenings

El vendedor de Orquídeas, Lorenzo Vigas, Venezuela and Mexico (documentary)
Rem, Thomas Koolhaas, USA (documentary)
Spes Contre Spem - Liberi Dentro, Ambrogio Crespi, Italy (documentary)

Venice Classics
A selection of restored classic films and documentaries on cinema. To check films in the section go official site here.

Debut films competing for the Lion of the Future -“Luigi De Laurentiis” Venice Award for a Debut Film
There are twenty-two (22) films competing for this award, 1 in Venezia 73, 7 in Orizzonti, 7 in SIC and 7 in Venice Days. All films are identified by a preceding (*).

(*) Competing for the Lion of the Future Award

Lion of the Future - Debut film Jury
President: Kim Rossi Stuart, actor and director, Italy
Rosa Bosch, producer, Spain and UK
Brady Corbet, actor and director, USA
Pilar López de Ayala, actress, Spain
Serge Toubiana, film critic, France

Tributes
The 73rd Venice International Film Festival will be dedicated to two great directors who have recently passed away: Abbas Kiarostami and Michael Cimino. The former changed the way we look at and reflect upon images in motion, the latter would have changed the face of American cinema even more than he actually did before he was deprived of the possibility of expressing himself fully.

A double Tribute will therefore be held during the event. There will be a screening of what is one of Michael Cimino's finest and, in part, most underrated films: Year of the Dragon (1985), with Mickey Rourke.

For Abbas Kiarostami, a special program will be shown composed of an unreleased digital short film from the series 24 Frames (which the Iranian director was still working on), and THIS IS MY FILM: 76 Minutes and 15 Seconds with Kiarostami, a collage film made for the occasion by Seifollah Samadian, Abbas' loyal friend and historic assistant, who for over twenty-five years filmed his work and gathered his thoughts about cinema, photography, art and life.

Interesting Data

In the 2016 edition there will be three (3) Golden Lion winning directors attending, Lorenzo Vigas, Kim Ki-Duk and Wim Enders; one Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize winner director, Andrei Konchalovski; two Silver Lion for Best Director winners, Andrei Konchalovski and Emir Kusturica; one Special Jury Prize winner director, Ulrich Seidl, one Lion of the Future award winner director, Emir Kusturica, two Orizzonti Award for Best Film winner directors, Lav Diaz and Wang Bing; plus 2 Academy Award wining directors, Paolo Sorrentino and Mel Gibson.

So, indeed there is a relevant participation of established directors that have won an award at the oldest fest in the world, but perhaps more interesting is that there are twelve (12) directors who are participating for the first time in the Competition. They are the following:

Damien Chazelle, Ana Lily Amirpour, Stéphane Brizé, Derek Cianfrance, Mariano Cohn e Gastón Duprat, Lav Diaz, Massimo D’Anolfi e Martina Parenti, Amat Escalante, Roan Johnson, Martin Koolhoven, Christopher Murray and Denis Villeneuve

To check the many movie posters of Venezia 73 go to my pinterest site here.

Videos (in Italian)

Paolo Baratta



Alberto Barbera

13th Venice Days Lineup

A few minutes ago Roberto Barzanti, President of the Venice Days Association, and Giorgio Gosetti, Artistic Director, announced the Giornate Degli Autori official selection at a press conference at Casa del Cinema in Rome.

This selection is strongly characterized - observes General Delegate Giorgio Gosetti - by the female creativity that flows through most of the films we've seen and most of those that have been chosen. It reflects the way that for years now, we've placed the female world - also through our work with creative partner Miu Miu on the ‘Women's Tales' project - at the center of our research. But it's also a strong sign of the vitality and rejuvenation of the art of film, which, by no coincidence, is confirmed in the exceptional number and quality of first and second works we believe in".

My first impression tells me the selections is strong on women directors (or "female creativity" as Gosetti put it) and has a strong Nordic Cinema flavor (fabulous!) but let me go deep into each film to make up my mind and perhaps confirm my first reactions

Ever since the first edition, Venice Days have come to represent a real alternative to the Festival's official areas and an ideal and informal place for authors, producers, distributors and journalists to meet and discuss their ideas in an informal environment.

This year, twenty nationalities will be represented (including those of the authors), with seven first works, seven female authors, three Italian films made with financial support from the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism, eleven titles competing for the Venice Days Award, which is awarded by a jury of twenty-eight young European film enthusiasts, chosen in partnership with the European Parliament and Europa Cinemas and coordinated by the director of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, Karel Och

Spontaneously my most positive reaction has been to the section poster with a beautiful image, been looking for info about the poster and IF find info, will share.

The 12 films selected from all over the world, in addition to other events and any special screenings, are screened in the theaters provided by the Venice Film Festival. As you will see, there are only 11 films announced today, so imagine soon we will learn one more film even when there are no news about it today. Still we know that a "surprise" film will be announced at a later date along the closing film, so we can expect 2 more films in this section.

The Official Awards of Venice Days are:
Venice Days Award, given by the Official Jury of Venice Days, headed by a filmmaker and composed by the participants to the program 28 Times Cinema of the European Parliament. The award consists is accompanied by a cash prize of €20,000, to be split equally between the filmmaker and the film's international distributor, who agrees to use the sum received to promote the winning film internationally.
BNL People's Choice Award for the films of the Official Selection, offered by BNL Gruppo BNP Paribas, Main Sponsor of Venice Days.
Label Europa Cinemas, dedicated to films produced and co-produced in Europe. The Label was created by a network of high-caliber European exhibitors, with the support of the EU's MEDIA Program. It consists of a financial contribution towards distribution and promotion, as well as a guarantee for the winning film that it will be shown in the cinemas belonging to the network.

All the films participating to the Days are also in competition for the parallel awards, with a ceremony due to take place on the last day of the Festival. First films are eligible for the "Luigi De Laurentiis Award Lion of the Future".

Most interesting is that up-to-today with only 2 sections announcing their lineups, there are quite a few LGBT films. So, we can foresee an interesting competition for the Queer Lion! Fantastic.

Official Selection

(*) Hjartasteinn (Heartstone), Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson, Iceland and Denmark
(*) Hounds of Love, Ben Young, Australia
Indivisibili (Indivisible), Edoardo De Angelis, Italy
(*) Ne gledaj mi u pijat (Quit Staring at My Plate), Hana Jušić, Croatia and Denmark
Pamilya ordinaryo, Eduardo Roy Jr., Philippines
(*) Pariente (Guilty Men), Iván D. Gaona, Colombia
(*) Polina, danser sa vie, Valérie Müller and Angelin Preljocaj, France
(*) La Ragazza del Mondo (Wordly Girl), Marco Danieli, Italy
(*) Sameblod (Sami Blood), Amanda Kernell, Sweden, Denmark and Norway
The War Show, Andreas Dalsgaard and Obaidah Zytoon, Denmark and Finland (documentary)
再見瓦城 Zai Jian Wa Cheng (The Road to Mandalay), Midi Z, Myanmar, Taiwan, China, France and Germany

(*) Competing for the Lion of the Future Award

Official Selection Jury
President: Bruce La Bruce, director, screenwriter, Canada

Special Events
Closing Film: Ombre dal fondo (The War Within), Paola Piacenza, Italy (documentary)
Always Shine, Sophia Takal, USA
Caffè (Coffee), Cristiano Bortone, Italy, Belgium and China
Il Profumo del Tempo delle Favole, Mauro Caputo, Italy (documentary)
Rocco, Thierry Demaizière and Alban Teurlai, France (documentary)
Vangelo, Pippo Delbono, Italy and Belgium
You Never Had It. An Evening with Bukowski, Matteo Borgardt, USA, Mexico and Italy (documentary short)

Miu Miu Women's Tales
Women Tales #11: Seed, Naomi Kawase, Italy and Japan
Women Tales #12: That One Day, Crystal Moselle, Italy, USA and UK

To check info and available trailers go @MOC.

On other news, every year, Venice Days reserves a special part of its program for exploring the dramatically changing film and audiovisual industry in China in relation to European and Italian creativity. The China Film Forum has, thanks to this partnership, become a key event for developing ideas and forms of expression shared by cultures as different as they are in favor of increasingly close cooperation. What makes the third edition of the China Film Forum so special is that it is the fruit of a partnership between Venice Days and international network Bridging the Dragon, together with Doc/it. The event is scheduled to take place at the Venice Film Festival on 2 September, and will center around themes, stories and creativity linking Europe and China.

About Miu Miu Women's Tales

‘A' as in Agnès, the irresistible muse of an unforgettable season in film history and the all-time best in film. ‘A' as in Alice, the vital exponent of a new season in Italian cinema and a female creativity that doesn't cramp its own style and doesn't hide, proud of its own identity. Alice Rohrwacher gave us Chapter 9 of "Women's Tales"; Agnès Varda brings us Chapter 10, the one that, in a sense, sums up the spirit of and the idea behind Miu Miu's cultural partnership with Venice Days.

In the last few years, "Miu Miu Women's Tales" has invited filmmakers from around the world, endowed with their distinct sensibilities and styles, to celebrate the ‘second sex' in the 21st century, probing it with a critical eye but also with the camaraderie of fellow travelers in an expressive universe that includes Zoe Cassavetes, Lucrecia Martel, Giada Colagrande, Massy Tadjedin, Ava DuVernay, Hiam Abbass, So Yong Kim, Miranda July, and now Alice Rohrwacher and Agnès Varda.

Their perspectives have embraced the infinite complexities and contradictions of women today, touching their hearts, prompting them to reflect. In this series of short films, the outfits designed by Miu Miu are assigned starring roles alongside celebrity actresses and models, providing a sort of counterpoint to the narrative. Power, desire, vanity, sophistication, rituals, rules, dreams, nightmares, visions and fairy tales: the myriad facets of a woman's routine are all to be found in even the tinest detail of her day.

For this very reason, Miu Miu and Venice Days conceive their partnership as something that goes beyond the exact moment of a screening and the glamour that an event like the Venice Film Festival entails. So our days at Venice Days are punctuated by dialogues between remarkable women working in film and the arts, filmmakers sharing their experiences, and glimpses of "little utopias" of women's creativity. As the initiative's slogan has proclaimed from the start, "Women's Tales" is no "reserve" for an "endangered species", but a practical demonstration that even amidst the buzz and the hype of a major event like the festival, it is possible to find room for a more profound look at the themes underlying at once our different cultures and our common ground, and their cinematic frontiers. The female "slant" is no rhetorical device thrown in between one film and the next, but a trademark creativity, a flag proudly flown.

Believe Naomi Kawase needs no introduction to blog readers but let me remind you who Crystal Moselle is. She propelled to international much-deserved fame with her outstanding documentary about the Angulo brothers, The Wolfpack, which I enjoyed beyond expectations for the amazing story but also the awesome storytelling style. So I'm looking forward to see what she does next and her short film in the Women's Tales collection of short films. Moselle short has not been released yet, but now you can enjoy Kawase's short if you haven't seen it yet.

Seed by Naomi Kawase



Naomi Kawase describes Sakura Ando, the lead character in her film, as being "more like a fairy. A mysterious creature". Seed is the story of the journey this girl takes from the enchanted nature of Nara to the chaos of Tokyo, and the encounters she has along the way.

A boy offers her the gift of an apple, which she in turn gives to a homeless man, who proffers her a soft piece of chiffon fabric in exchange. Moving like a tree that sways in the wind, the girl expresses a spirit that secretly runs through places and living things. The eleventh film commissioned by Miu Miu Women's Tales was directed by the multiple Cannes award-winning Japanese director Naomi Kawase.

Her documentaries and films blend nature and tradition, the personal and the poetic, and include An (2015), Still the Water (2014), The Mourning Forest (2007) and Suzaku (1997). Seed is also a sentimental portrait of Asian femininity, which Kawase depicts as "primitive, primal and erotic at the same time". The soundtrack was composed by the band Sakanation, famous for their fusion of folk melodies and artful lyrics.

2016 Lux Film Prize Official Competition

The 2016 LUX Film Prize has selected the three films in its Official Competition.

The 10th-anniversary edition of the award will have Leyla Bouzid’s As I Open My Eyes (France/Tunisia/Belgium/United Arab Emirates), Claude Barras’ My Life as a Courgette (Switzerland/France) and Maren Ade’s Toni Erdmann (Germany/Austria/Romania) as the final contenders.

Chairwoman of the Committee on Culture and Education Silvia Costa and Vice-President of the European Parliament Antonio Tajani announced the titles in contention for the award today, at the Venice Days press conference.

The three films were picked from the previously announced Official Selection, ten beautiful and socially engaged films focusing on current global issues, including some slightly more humorous, yet equally challenging titles.

Leyla Bouzid’s feature-film debut takes viewers across the Mediterranean, showing a young generation trapped between the hope and love they feel for their own country, and despair.

Claude Barras’ first feature is a bittersweet, poetic stop-motion animation film — the first ever to appear in the LUX Film Prize Competition — a portrait of the harsh reality of an orphanage with delicate and gawky humour that was tenderly adapted from Gilles Paris’ novel by Céline Sciamma (Girlhood, a 2014 LUX Film Prize finalist).

Finally, in her third feature film, Maren Ade turns her gaze towards the contemporary corporate culture in an eminently political tragicomedy. The film, a real political statement, examines how the corporate ethos can destroy family ties, people’s lives and happiness.



The Giornate Degli Autori -Venice Days, in collaboration with the Venice Film Market, will introduce the new edition by hosting the screening of the films in the Official Competition. Once again this year, the 28 Times Cinema initiative, in collaboration with Europa Cinemas and Cineuropa, will bring 28 young cinephiles to act as the jury for the Venice Days Award and take part in the LUX Film Prize experience, kicking off their role as LUX Ambassadors, in order to present the LUX Film Days in their respective countries.

From October to December, As I Open My Eyes, My Life as a Courgette and Toni Erdmann will become the core of the 2016 LUX Film Days, and will be screened across 28 EU countries. Subtitled into the 24 official EU languages, Europeans will not only be able to discover them, but also to discuss the issues that they raise. Thus, by creating the framework for a European public space, the LUX Film Prize is again a tool that shows the complexity of a European identity, as it interprets and presents the realities of European successes and challenges.

This year’s LUX Film Days will also mark the beginning of cooperation between the European Parliament Information Offices and the Creative Europe MEDIA Desks, to strengthen visibility and broaden the audience. Moreover, to mark the 10th anniversary of the award, important European film professionals will join the Members of the European Parliament at a series of events in Brussels on 10 October. During the LUX Film Days, all 751 Members of the European Parliament will be invited to vote for one of the three films in competition.

On 23 November, 2016 the award winner will be announced at the European Parliament in Strasbourg in the presence of the directors.

The following is basic info plus short smart review, the first two written by Fabien Lemercier and third written by Vittoria Scarpa (could have spoilers) for each film in the Official Selection.

Toni Erdmann by Maren Ade (Premier at 2016 Cannes Film Festival In Competition)

For her first appearance in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, German director Maren Ade, who made quite the splash with her previous opus, Everyone Else , has audaciously confirmed her status as a rising star, thanks to her third feature, Toni Erdmann . Patiently weaving its web around the traditional subject matter of a father desperately hoping to become closer to his daughter at any cost, while the latter is living in a different country, working in the cutthroat world of international consulting, the movie constantly circumvents its carefully constructed hyper-realism through disruptive comic impulses, intrinsically linked to the personality traits of one of the two main characters – a father who will even stretch to pretending to become someone else in order to successfully break through his daughter's armor. This one enormous joke, sometimes bordering on the grotesque, transforms into a sort of power struggle in which humor and love attempt to thaw an icy coldness and overcome distance. It is a feature walking a fine line – occasionally verging on losing its balance – which owes a great deal to the huge talent of its two lead performers: fascinating German actress Sandra Hüller and Austria's Peter Simonischek.

"I've hired a substitute daughter to replace mine. She's a better cook and she cuts my nails." This is the kind of joke that Winfried loves to crack out of the blue in the presence of Ines, the key character in the story – and in the most inappropriate circumstances, to boot (for instance, in the middle of the business dealings being undertaken by his daughter, who is an expat living in Bucharest, where she is a consultant at a big international firm). And the sixty-something has plenty of other banter-filled tricks up his sleeve, all of which is enough to make Ines particularly uneasy when her dad, who is divorced from her mother, and whom she sees very rarely or only via Skype, turns up without warning to pay her a visit in the Romanian capital. Because this young woman has other fish to fry at work (where she is busy preparing a restructuring scenario for a large company) and also wants to focus on her career, where her ambition reigns supreme. However, a few blunders later, Winfried really hits a nerve when he asks Ines whether she is happy or not, which she responds to curtly by sending him packing, off to the airport. But much to her surprise, she sees him reappear some time later, completely out of the blue, in disguise, introducing himself (to anyone who cares to listen) as Toni Erdmann and behaving in just as zany a way as his previous incarnation, Winfried. Interfering with the professional and private life of his exasperated daughter ("You're completely insane!”), Toni Winfried will nevertheless manage to succeed in his assault, to the point where Ines takes up the gauntlet and decides to join in with her father's game. This role-play gets totally out of control, turning into a match between their different takes on life, where each action stirs highly personal emotions that are buried deep down.

Unfolding on a knife-edge, and focusing on a subject that can easily, by its very nature, lend itself to a lot of slip-ups, Maren Aden nonetheless stays the course very effectively, indulging in a thrilling finale that rewards the audience's patience. Its mis-en-scène really takes the time to infuse the silences with meaning in order to render the internal solitude of the two main characters more clearly. Intertwining "larger than life" mockery, a humanistic tenderness and a portrait of the tyranny of high-performing, modern-day big business, Toni Erdmann (sold by The Match Factory) proves to be a cinematic prototype that is genuinely special, a daring oddity that stands as a testament to the ingeniously original hallmark of this director, who is not one to back down from a challenge.



Ma Vie de Courgette (My Life as a Courgette aka My Life as a Zucchini) by Claude Barras

“We are all alike; there’s no one left to love us.” The Les Fontaines orphanage is home to seven ten-year-old children: the endearing protagonists in Swiss filmmaker Claude Barras’ stunning My Life as a Courgette, an animated feature debut, outstanding thanks to both its subject matter and its approach to it, which was unveiled in the Directors’ Fortnight at the 69th Cannes Film Festival.

The quiet Courgette, whose real name is Icarus, has never met his father and sets off for Les Fontaines, his kite under his arm, following his alcoholic mother’s accidental death. In the orphanage, which is sequestered away from the city, he meets and learns about each of his partners in misfortune. Simon’s parents are constantly on drugs, Ahmed’s father is in prison after holding up a service station, Jujube’s mother has reached a very advanced stage of chronic-depressive delirium, while Bea’s mum has been deported to Africa, and Alice still has nightmares about the “disgusting things” her father did. As for the pretty Camille, under whose charm Courgette instantly falls, she was present as her father killed her mother, before taking his own life, and “her eyes show that she saw it all”.

As such, the short lives of these seven children are summed up by their precocious encounter with the world’s cruelty, meaning that it would have been easy for them to be created as part of the darkest vein of cinematic social realism. However, it’s a much different path, both softer and brighter, along which director Barras chose to walk with Céline Sciamma (proving the aptness of her writing following the trio of films about adolescence she worked on as a director: Water Lilies, Tomboy and Girlhood), as they adapted Gilles Paris’ novel Autobiography of a Courgette.

Contrary to the popular paradigm of portraying orphanages as places of aggravated abuse, as in Oliver Twist, Les Fontaines is a haven of peace, conducive to reconstruction, tolerance and friendship. This positive approach to the darkness of the past definitely does not make light of those events, as the wounds, which rocked these children to their core, are still present and bubble up to the surface without taking centre stage, mainly being expressed through silences and glances. As such, the film has avoided falling into the trap of over-dramatization, skilfully dealing with topics with hard-hitting consequences (emotional emptiness, foster families, custodial rights, adoption, etc) and even more tactfully showing the simplicity of its poetic stance, which is fed by tender empathy and benevolent humor.

My Life as a Courgette is a calm representation with strong emotional potential thanks to its astounding mastery of stop-motion animation and the fact it toys marvelously with the contrast between these highly stylized “character-marionettes” and the naturalism of the dialogues and voices. Broken up into sequence shots, the film explores intimate topics far removed from those that have reigned supreme in contemporary animated films, which are based on speed and the spectacular. In the big, round eyes of Courgette and his friends, you can see their awareness of all the bitter violence in the world mingle with the regenerative virtues of friendship as well as the image of a better future, like a mirror for the viewers, who were all children at one stage of their lives.

Produced by Swiss outfit Rita Productions and France’s Blue Spirit Production, Gebeka Films and KNM, My Life as a Courgette is sold internationally by Indie Sales.



À peine j'ouvre les yeux (As I Open My Eyes) by Leila Bouzid (Premiered at 2015 Venice Days)

Farah is a curly-haired 18-year-old who longs to be free. She stays out late at night and drinks beer, she's a rebel, she's daring and explosive. It's the summer of 2010 in Tunisia, a few months before the beginning of the Arab Spring, but As I Open My Eyes by Leyla Bouzid is not about the revolution. The film by the up-and-coming Tunisian director, in competition in Venice Days at the 72nd Venice Film Festival, is the story of the months that immediately preceded it, following the path of a young singer who bravely and a little recklessly challenges government censorship, by bringing her voice and her lyrical allegations to bars and nightclubs frequented by Tunisian young people, and onto the streets.

We appear to really enter those clubs, the atmosphere, gestures and faces that are present within are so real. In the film by Bouzid, Tunisian nightlife is exhilarating: people toast, they sing, dance, then there's a race to the metro and everyone goes home. When Farah (newcomer Baya Medhaffer) returns home, however, she is met by reproaches from her mother Hayet (famous Tunisian singer Ghalia Benali). Farah sings in a local rock band and the police have started to keep an eye on her. The lyrics in her songs deal with the country's problems, lethargy and stolen dreams. Her mother, who was just as much a rebel when young, is well aware of the risks that she runs. But there's no stopping Farah: they take away her microphone and she continues singing, they cancel a concert and she improvises one on the street, her mother grounds her and, after locking her into her room, she goes out all the same. It's easy to imagine Farah, a few months later, protesting in the square against the Ben Ali regime. But the film takes a different course, and we don't know if the young, curly-haired rebel will succeed in pulling out her voice again.

As I Open My Eyes narrates with expressive and political power everyday life at a particular moment in time in the country. “Farah represents the strength of Tunisian young people and of all Arab artists who have to struggle to survive,” states Leyla Bouzid. “The film seeks to go further into about what has been told superficially by the media. Using a personal story, I sought to give an idea of the climate in which the revolution was born.” Would Farah be free to sing today? “There is greater awareness of the importance of freedom of speech today in Tunisia, but they still arrest bloggers and rappers,” explains the director. “You can sing, but you might have problems,” confirms the lead actress. “It's a constant battle, trying to raise the limits ever further. But it can only get better; I'm optimistic." Meanwhile, the film received financing from the Tunisian Ministry for Culture, and that's a good sign.

As I Open My Eyes is a Blue Monday Productions (France), Propaganda Production (Tunisia) and Hélicotronc (Belgium) production. International sales are entrusted to Parisian outfit Doc & Film International.

31st Venice International Film Critics' Week Lineup

The week starts early with the release of the 2016 Settimana Internazionale della Critica lineup announcement for the section that will run from August 31 to September 10.

As we know la Settimana is an independent section of the Biennale exclusively dedicated to first-time directors' full-length films and every year screens seven (7) films in competition.

In this edition besides the seven films in competition there are two special events out of competition, the opening and the closing film. Will also list the seven Italian short films plus one special event -a short by none other than Marco Bellocchio- that make the selection of the SIC@SIC 2016 presented by Venice Critics' Week and Instituto Luce Cinecittà.

Feature Films

In Competition
(*) Akher Wahed Fina (The Las of Us), Ala Eddine Slim, Tunisia, Qatar, UAE and Lebanon
(*) Drum, Keywan Karimi, France and Iran
(*) Jours de France (Four Days in France), Jérôme Reybaud, France
(*) Los Nadie (The Nobodies), Juan Sebastián Mesa, Colombia
(*) Prank, Vincent Biron, Canada
(*) Singing in Graveyards, Bradley Liew, Malaysia and Philippines
(*) Le Ultime Cose, Irene Dionisio, Italy, Switzerland and France

 (*) Competing for Lion of the Future Award

Special Events Out of Competition
Opening Film: Prevenge, Alice Lowe, UK
Closing Film: Are We Not Cats, Xander Robin, USA

SIC@SIC Italian Short Films
Alice, Chiara Leonaradi, Italy, 14'
Atlante 1783 (Atlas 1783), Maria Giovanna Cicciari, Italy, 20' (documentary short)
Colazione sull'erba (Lunch on the Grass), Edoardo Ferraro, Italy, 14'
dodici pagine (Twelve Pages), Riccardo Caruso, Roberto Tenace, Luigi Lombardi and Elisabetta Falanga, Italy, 13'
Era ieri (It Was Yesterday), Valentina Pedicini, Italy, 15'
Notturno (Nocturne), Fatima Bianchi, Italy, 15'
Vanilla, Rosella Inglese, Italy, 13'

Special Event
Opening Short: Pagliacci (Clowns), Marco Bellocchio, Italy, 18'

If you wish to learn more about the short films, including one that has lesbian interest theme, see photo stills and read the statement published in the short films press release go here.

To check info and available trailers go @MOC.

In the feature films press release there is very long statement by Giona A. Nazzaro, the General Delegate of the fest section that I'm reproducing here as believe there are some interesting food for thought elements.  This is the complete statement.

Year One. Cinema is always at Year One. Only numbers and statistics believe in its crisis (that is not really there, but we can see it). The cinema for which is worth entering the field for, is still being made. It’s out there, you just need to see it. The Venice International Film Critics’ Week – a place where authors such as Olivier Assayas, Mike Leigh, Harmony Kornie, Kevin Reynolds, Pedro Costa, Antonio Capuano and Michel Bena where discovered–, has always been a privileged interlocutor of this renewal.

Festivals are an object of periodical and not particularly stimulating discussions that interrogate their own usefulness. They should rather be a narration-place about cinema, and not merely a dull marketplace of available cinematographic goods (the eclecticism is rather overvalued); an arena where a certain thinking is constructed, reflecting on what can still be done with the moving images and where an idea, hopefully not a banal one, is put forth about the state of the world we are living in.

This is not a new idea. Rossellini used to do it. And if we can still dare to get inspiration from just one of the traits of Rossellini’s poetics, that should be the complete absence of any cinematic nostalgia; the fact that he was always in the present tense, in the unfolding of history. He was so present in the unfolding of his time, that he became maybe the only filmmaker that thought about the future of cinema (and not only). That’s it. The determination of being present, without surrendering to nostalgia or mythology. This is the first propulsive drive of this 31st edition of the Venice International Film Critics’ Week.

Today’s cinema, made today, for today’s eyes. Because only the present, that manifests itself in multiple forms that cannot be grasped, can allow us to imagine a form of cinema that goes back to exploring our relationship with what happens on the screen and around it.

The selected films for this edition, picked among more than 500 titles submitted (there would be enough for at least two selections…), are characterized by a “filmic pleasure”, a “pleasure” that is activated through putting us back into the game against visual conventions. A “pleasure” whose founding elements are risk and astonishment. From Prevenge – a genius post-feminist slasher movie directed by Alice Lowe, known for her roles in Edgar Wright and Ben Wheatley’s films – to Le ultime cose by Irene Dionisio – tense re-visitation of neorealist humanism – we can see a remapping not of things already seen but of those yet to be seen.

Keywan Karimi, Iranian filmmaker sentenced to one year of jail and 223 lashes for offending Islam, authors a metaphysical and expressionist noir with Drum, while Ala Eddine Slim, Tunisian documentary filmmaker and video artist with his The Last of Us, re-launches with great audacity an abstract and experimental cinema which is adventurous and honestly even science fictional.

Because deep inside, cinema is by definition, a young form of art, as it should be. But not only in a perspective of age. One has only to look at Los Nadie by Juan Sebastián Mesa, shot in seven days throughout the most inaccessible streets of Medellin, or Prank by Vincent Biron, former director of photography of Denis Côté, a parable of hard-core post-salingerian nihilism.

And cinema is also, and always, a reclaiming (or loosing again…) of one’s place in the world. Jours de France by Jerome Reybaud hypothesizes a sensual sentimental voyage using an exceptional navigator such as Grindr, to find again the forgotten name of things.

Pepe Smith, a Filipino rock legend, is probably the most surprising presence. The main character of Singing in Graveyards, together with Lav Diaz, offers an image and a mirror of the complex relationship of the characters with modernity and democracy in their country.

Finally, as a closing film, we present Are We Not Cats by Xander Robin, a visceral melodramatic horror, a dark fairytale articulated through the music of Funkadelik, Yvonne Fair, Lightning Bolt and Albert Ayler. A great surprise coming from the US that manages to reconnect itself with the new wave of the early 1980s, reinventing instinctive impulses and dreamlike calligraphies.

Let’s not forget the wonderful and wild group of Italian short filmmakers of SIC@SIC, a synergy activated in collaboration with Instituto Luce-Cinecittà. Authors launched to the conquest of the future, armed with their gaze only: surprising, rigorous, audacious, tender, provocative, radical and generous. Sponsored by Marco Bellocchio, the youngest and most vital of the Italian maestros. Take note today of the names of Chiara Leonardi and Edoardo Ferraro, Valentina Pedicini and Rossella Inglese, Maria Giovanna Cicciari, Fatima Bianchi and the collective Caruso, Falanga, Lombardi, Tenace.

The 31st edition of the Venice International Film Critics’ Week is not a closed proposition, but an invitation to a voyage. We put forth today the premises to imagine the cinema that is still to be invented.

#Venezia73 News 2

The calm before the storm is coming to an end next week when fest organizers announce #Venezia73 selection in the many sections of the 2016 festival and to seal the calm, today was the announcement of the juries.

There are some very pleasant news as during the festival we will be able to often see great European actresses like Nina Hoss and none other than Chiara Mastroianni plus the Golden Lion winner of last year is now part of the Venezia 73 jury. But before getting into the juries for Venezia 73, Orizzonti, Opera Prima and Venezia Classici, will do an update on some of the news that were released since the last news blog post.

Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jerzy Skolimowski Golden Lions for Lifetime Achievement

French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo and Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski are the recipients of the Golden Lions for Lifetime Achievement of the 73rd Venice International Film Festival.
The decision was made by the Board of Directors of the Biennale di Venezia, chaired by Paolo Baratta, upon recommendation of the Director of the Venice Film Festival Alberto Barbera.

The Board of Directors has decided to award two Golden Lions for Career Achievement at every future edition of the Film Festival, starting this year. One will be given to a director or someone from the world of film production; the second will be awarded to an actor or an actress, i.e., to someone who belongs to the world of acting.

Jean-Paul Belmondo, an icon of French and international cinema, is one of the actors who best interpreted the hallmark modernity of the Nouvelle Vague in his representation of alienated characters, in Leda (À double tour, 1959) by Claude Chabrol; Breathless (1960) and Pierrot le Fou (1965, presented in Competition at the Venice Film Festival), both by Jean-Luc Godard; or Mississippi Mermaid (1969) by François Truffaut. In particular, in his portrayal of Michel Poiccard/László Kovács in Breathless, Belmondo brought to the fore the figure of the provocative and seductive antihero, a far cry from the Hollywood stereotypes on which Godard himself had based the character. His extroverted acting style secured him some of the best roles in French gangster movies, such as in The Big Risk (1960) by Claude Sautet, Le Doulos (1962) by Jean-Pierre Melville and Hit Man (1972) by José Giovanni, and he achieved enormous success in many of his later movies, from That Man from Rio (1964) by Philippe de Broca to The Night Caller (1975) by Henri Verneuil, from The Professional (1981) by Georges Lautner to Itinerary of a Spoiled Child (1988) by Claude Lelouch. Says Festival Director Alberto Barbera, “Thanks to his fascinating face, irresistible charm and extraordinary versatility, he has played roles in dramas, adventure movies and even comedies, making him a star who is universally respected, by committed directors and escapist cinema alike.”

Says Festival Director Alberto Barbera, “Jerzy Skolimowski is one of the most representative exponents of the modern cinema born during the nouvelles vagues of the 1960s. He and Roman Polanski are the two filmmakers who contributed most to the renewal of Polish cinema during that same period.” Polanski himself (who called him in to write the screenplay of his debut movie, Knife in the Water) predicted: “Skolimowski will stand head and shoulders above his generation.” Actually, the fifty year career of the “boxing poet” (as he was dubbed by Andrezj Munk, Skolimowski’s cinematographic “father”), during which he made seventeen feature-length films, has been anything but easy, and his opus was marked by continuous moves – from Poland to Belgium, from England to the United States, before returning to his homeland less than ten years ago. Although his body of works is seemingly stateless, due to heterogeneous and apparently dissimilar production styles, each one of his movies is actually highly personal and original. The trilogy he made in Poland during his debut years – Rysopis (1964), Walkover (1965) and Barrier (1966) - were to the Eastern Bloc countries what Godard’s earliest movies were to Western cinema, whereas his later masterpieces - The Departure (1967, Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival), Deep End (1970), The Shout (1978, Grand Prix at Cannes Film Festival), Hands Up! (1981) and Moonlighting (1982, Best Screenplay at Cannes Film Festival) – are still top examples of a type of cinema which is modern, free and innovative, radically nonconformist and bold. The last films he made after returning to his homeland – Four Nights With Anna (2008), Essential Killing (2010, Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival), presented in competition at the Venice Film Festival as his following movie 11 Minutes (2015) – display an unexhausted and surprising capacity for renewal which rightfully places him among the most combative and original directors of contemporary cinema.

Pre-opening event of the 73rd Venice International Film Festival

Dedicated to the great director Luigi Comencini (1916 - 2007) on the centennial of his birth, the Pre-opening event of the 73rd Venice International Film Festival will be held on Tuesday August 30th at the Sala Darsena (Palazzo del Cinema) on the Lido.

Featured will be the screening of Comencini's masterpiece Tutti a casa (Everybody Go Home, Italy/France, 1960) in the copy digitally restored by Filmauro and CSC - Cineteca Nazionale di Roma, starring Alberto Sordi, Serge Reggiani, Carla Gravina and Eduardo De Filippo, produced by Dino De Laurentiis, with screenplay by Age and Scarpelli, winner at the time of two David di Donatello awards and one Nastro d'argento.

The restored version will be presented in its world premiere screening, remastered in 4K on the basis of the original negatives provided by Filmauro. The digital processing was performed in the laboratories of Cinecittà Digital Factory in Rome. The transfer to 35mm film was done in the laboratories of Augustus Color in Rome.

The restored films of Venezia Classici

Italian director Roberto Andò (The Confessions, Long Live Freedom, The Prince’s Manuscript) will chair the Jury of Cinema History Students which – for the fourth time – will award the Venezia Classici Award for the Bet Restored Film and the Best Documentary on Cinema.

The numerous restored masterpieces in the Venezia Classici section of the 73rd Venice International Film Festival include classic films by Robert Bresson, John Ford, Woody Allen, Nikita Michalkov, Akira Kurosawa, Louis Malle plus more, but none is so relevant -to me and world cinema- as the restoration of Stalker by Andrei Tarkovski. If you wish to check the list with all restored films go official site here.

As we know the Venezia Classici section will also feature the presentation of a selection of documentaries about cinema and its filmmakers; the complete list will be announced next Thursday along with the Official Selection.

The three international Juries of the 73rd Venice International Film Festival

Venezia 73

As we know, the President of the Jury is director Sam Mendes and here are the filmmakers that will help him to decide on the fest top awards.

German actress Nina Hoss, who works in both film and the theatre, won the Silver Bear as Best Actress at the Berlin Film Festival in 2007 with Yella (2007) by Christian Petzold, a director with whom she has worked many times: in Jerichow (2008), screened in Competition in Venice, and in the recent Phoenix (2014), a performance for which she won many important international awards.

French actress Chiara Mastroianni, a famous star of European auteur films, who acted alongside her mother Catherine Deneuve at a very young age in Ma maison préférée by André Téchiné (1993, nominated at the César awards for Most Promising Actress). In 2010 she won the Excellence Award at the Locarno Film Festival. In 2014 she participated in the Venice International Film Festival with two films in Competition, Trois Coeurs by Benoît Jacquot and La Rançon de la gloire by Xavier Beauvois.

American artist, singer, director and writer Laurie Anderson, one of the most important and courageous exponents of the creative avant-garde in America today. She is renowned for her vocal and multimedia performances, which cross-pollinate art, theatre and experimental music. In 2015 she directed Heart of a Dog, screenedin Competition in Venice, which won unanimous critical acclaim around the world.

British actress Gemma Arterton moved into the limelight in 2008 when she appeared as a Bond Girl in the film Quantum of Solace by Marc Forster. In 2009 she won the Empire Award for Best Newcomer. The star of Tamara Drewe (2010) by Stephen Frears and of Byzantium (2012) by Neil Jordan, she has also appeared in major productions such as Prince of Persia (2010) by Mike Newell.

American director Joshua Oppenheimer, who attracted international attention with his two documentaries, both nominated for an Oscar, The Act of Killing (2012) and The Look of Silence (2014), the latter in Competition at the Venice Film Festival where it won the Grand Jury Prize. Since then, the film has won 70 awards, including the Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary.

Venezuelan director Lorenzo Vigas, who won the Golden Lion for Best Film at last year's Venice International Film Festival with his debut film Desde allà, the first Latin-American director to win the most important prize on the Lido. The film was later screened at many international festivals and won many awards.

Chinese actress, director and singer Zhao Wei, who rose to international fame in the films of Stephen Chow, Ann Hui, He Ping, John Woo and Johnnie To. For her role in Dearest (2014) by Peter Chan, screened Out of Competition at the Venice Film Festival, she won Best Actress at the Hong Kong Film Awards. In 2013 she made her debut as a director with So Young, the highest-grossing film ever in China for a female director.

The Italian magistrate, writer, playwright and screenwriter Giancarlo De Cataldo, author of the best-selling novel Romanzo criminale (2002) which inspired the film by Michele Placido (2005) and the television series by Stefano Sollima (2008). He is a two-time winner of the David di Donatello for the screenplays of Romanzo criminale, and of Noi credevamo (2010) by Mario Martone (which also won a Nastro d'argento for the screenplay).

The Jury will award the following official prizes to the feature films in Competition: Golden Lion for Best Film; Silver Lion - Grand Jury Prize; Silver Lion for Best Director; Coppa Volpi for Best Actor; Coppa Volpi for Best Actress; “Marcello Mastroianni” Award for Best New Young Actor or Actress; Award for Best Screenplay; and the Special Jury Prize.

Orizzonti

The members of the international Jury of the Orizzonti section, in addition to its president, French director Robert Guédiguian, are:

American film critic and historian Jim Hoberman, long the "senior critic" of the "Village Voice" in New York, who writes a column in "The New York Times", and is one of the most influential voices in international film criticism. A teacher and exhibition curator, he has been a member of international juries and of the selection committee for the New York Film Festival. He has written thirteen books on cinema.

Egyptian actress Nelly Karim, who won the Best Actress Award at the Cairo International Film Festival in 2004 for My Soulmate by Khaled Youssef. In 2012, her performance in Cairo 678 by Mohamed Diab, won her the Best Actress Award at the Arab Film Festival. She took part in the penultimate film by Youssef Chahine, Alexandria...New York (2004).

Italian actress Valentina Lodovini, one of the most important actresses in Italian cinema in recent years, starting with her role as the star of La giusta distanza (2007) by Carlo Mazzacurati. Winner of the David di Donatello in 2010 for Benvenuti al Sud by Luca Miniero, in 2011 she starred in Cose dell’altro mondo by Francesco Patierno, presented at the Venice Film Festival.

The Korean actress and director Moon So-ri has set a milestone in Korean film history with her passionate acting in Lee Chang-dong's Oasis which earned her the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Emerging Actress at the 2002 Venice Film Festival, for the first time as a Korean actress.

Spanish film critic and scholar José Maria (Chema) Prado, the long-standing director (since 1989) of the Filmoteca Española in Madrid. He has been a member of the jury at many international film festivals, including Cannes and Locarno, and has collaborated with the San Sebastian Festival. In 2015 he won the Premio Fénix por la Contribución a la Cultura Cinematográfica de Iberoamérica.

Indian director Chaitanya Tamhane, whose debut feature film, Court (2014), premiered at the 71st Venice Film Festival, where it won the Lion of the Future award and the Orizzonti award for Best film. Since then, the film has gone on to win 32 international awards, and it was India’s official entry to the Oscars. He has recently been selected for the Rolex Mentor-Protégé Arts Initiative under the mentorship of Alfonso Cuarón.

The Jury will award the following prizes, with no ex-aequo awards permitted: Orizzonti Award for Best Film; Orizzonti Award for Best Director; Special Orizzonti Jury Prize; Orizzonti Award for Best Actor or Actress; Orizzonti Award for Best Screenplay; Orizzonti Award for Best Short Film; Venice Short Film Nomination for the European Film Awards 2016.

Debut Film – Lion of the Future

The members of the international Jury of the “Luigi De Laurentiis” Venice Award for a Debut Film – Lion of the Future, in addition to its president, Italian actor Kim Rossi Stuart, are:

Spanish producer Rosa Bosch, former Deputy Director of the London Film Festival/National Film Theatre. As a producer, she has worked with directors such as Wim Wenders, Guillermo Del Toro, Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu and Gus Van Sant. In 2003 she became co-managing director of HBO Films in London.

American actor and director Brady Corbet won the “Luigi De Laurentiis” Venice Award for a Debut Film – Lion of the Future at the 2015 Venice Film Festival and the Orizzonti Award for Best Director. Previously he had been one of America's most interesting young actors, as the star, among others, of Mysterious Skin (2004) by Gregg Araki, presented at the Venice Film Festival.

Spanish actress Pilar López de Ayala, one of the most highly considered and beloved Iberian stars, won the Silver Shell at the San Sebastian Film Festival and the Goya Prize for her performance as Queen Juana de Castilla in Mad Love (2001)by Vicente Aranda. She was the star of The Strange Case of Angelica (2010) by Manoel de Oliveira, presented in the Un certain regard section of the Cannes Film Festival.

French film critic Serge Toubiana, one of the most important film scholars of his generation, critic for Cahiers du cinéma from 1974 to 2000 (and its director for many years), director of the Cinémathèque Française from 2003 through January 2016. He is the author of many books and documentaries. With Kent Jones, he co-authored the documentary Hitchcock Truffaut (2015).

The Jury will award, with no ex-aequo awards permitted, the Lion of the Future – “Luigi De Laurentiis” Venice Award for a Debut Film to one of the debut feature-length films selected from the various competition sections of the Venice Film Festival (Official Selection and Independent and Parallel Sidebars). It comes with a cash prize of 100,000 USD donated by Filmauro di Aurelio e Luigi De Laurentiis, to be divided equally between the director and the producer.

4th Sebastiane Latino Award Winner

The Chilean film Rara, directed by Pepa San Martín, will receive the Sebastiane Latino Award at the coming edition of the San Sebastian Festival. The Award goes to the Latin American feature film released during the previous year to best defend the demands and values of lesbian, gay, transsexual and bisexual people.

The accolade also reflects the support lent to Latin American productions by the Sebastiane Award, now in its 17th edition, and the San Sebastian Festival.

The Jury, made up of members of GEHITU, the Basque gay, lesbian, transsexual and bisexual association, opted for the film, to be presented in the coming Horizontes Latinos section, telling from a teenager’s point of view the story of her mother, the lesbian judge Karen Atala, who had the custody of her children taken from her by the Chilean justice because of her sexual orientation. Atala took her struggle to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which finally condemned Chile.

The Jury also rated the way the film conveys “the internal enemy that all we LGBT people have, the internalized homophobia, that feeling which after years of repression may have taken brutal root inside us, preventing us from expressing healthy affectivity in society”. San Martín prompts her leading character, “for fear of non-existent rejection, to unleash a succession of events leading to an unpleasant situation for all those around her”.

They also highlighted the fact that Rara is a work directed, written and performed largely by women, “an obvious example of the strong presence of women in many films” participating in the fourth edition of the Sebastiane Latino Award.

Synopsis from Berlinale 2016 
“So ... do your Mom and Lia kiss in public?” · “Sometimes. Not that much.”

Since their parents split up, Sara and her younger sister live with their mother, whose new partner is a woman. Everyday life for the four of them is hardly any different than it is for other families. The situation is actually totally fine with Sara. But not everyone sees it that way – her father in particular has his doubts. As Sara’s 13th birthday approaches, she’s feeling rather overwhelmed: her first crush, a body in the midst of changes and to top it off, conflicts over loyalty with her parents ... Everything feels wrong. The empathetic feature-length debut of director Pepa San Martín is based on a true story.

Pepa San Martín





The poster that reminds us film was in 2016 Berlinale where won the International Jury Grand Prix for Best Film in the Generation Kplus section.

To check news at official site go here, available only in Spanish.

4th Sebastiane Latino Award Finalists

The coming edition of the San Sebastian Festival will include screening of the winner of the Sebastiane Latino Award, presented by the Basque gay, lesbian, transsexual and bisexual association, GEHITU.

The Award goes to the Latin American feature film released during the previous year to best defend the demands and values of lesbian, gay, transsexual and bisexual people.

The Sebastiane Latino Award Jury, composed of members of GEHITU, has selected as finalists the films Amores Urbanos, Mãe só há uma, Nunca vas a estar solo, Rara, Santa y Andrés and Uio: sácame a pasear. Four of the six finalist films are directed by women.

This fourth edition of the award renews its support of Latin American cinema at the San Sebastian Festival, an event well known for its backing of Latin American productions. In addition to presenting the award to the winner, to be announced on the 18th, the 2nd Meeting of Ibero-American LGBT Film Festivals will also take place at the coming edition of the Festival.

No surprise when I say the most interesting film is the one from Ecuador as was not aware of film and is unusual to find a lesbian interest film made in Ecuador; on top, film already has won some local production awards. Interesting.

Amores Urbanos (Restless Love), Vera Egito, Brazil
Amores Urbanos is a comedy-drama telling the tale of three friends who live in the same building in the city of São Paulo. Julia, Diego and Micaela are young anti-heroes who deal with their ups and downs in love and work with humour and heaps of personality.



Mãe só há uma (Don't Call Me Son), Anna Muylaert, Brazil
On discovering that he was stolen as a child by the woman he thought was his mother, Pierre (also known as Felipe) must face up to the consequences of his mother’s actions and try to deal with his biological family.



Nunca Vas a Estar Solo (You'll Never Be Alone), Alex Anwandter, Chile
After the violent assault of his gay teenage son Juan, a withdrawn manager at a mannequin factory, struggles between paying his son’s exhorbitant medical bills and his last attempt at becoming partner with his boss. As he runs into dead-ends and unexpected betrayals, he discovers that the world he thought he knew was waiting to be violent with him too. Juan has already made too many mistakes, but his son can still be saved.



Rara, Pepa San Martín, Chile and Argentina
A story taking its inspiration from the real-life case of a Chilean judge who lost custody of her children for being a lesbian, narrated from the point of view of her eldest daughter, Sara, aged 13. The screenplay is based on a true story which could be told as a tale of lawyers and courts, of lawsuits, plaintiffs, defendants and victims, but is, instead, the story of a family.



Santa y Andrés, Carlos Lechuga, Cuba, France and Colombia
1988, Andrés is a homosexual writer with counterrevolutionary ideas. He lives confined by the government in a cabin deep in the mountains of eastern Cuba. When a political meeting is about to be held they send Santa, a local girl, to keep an eye on him for three days. Although the odds seem to be stacked against them, they soon realize that they have far more in common than they thought.



Uio: Sácame a Pasear (UIO: Take Me For a Ride), Micaela Rueda, Ecuador, Mexico and Colombia
Sara is in her last year of high school, doesn't have many friends and is trapped between a dominating mother and an inattentive father. But everything changes when she meets Andrea, her new schoolmate, and the two become involved in a secret intimate relationship.




To read the news at the official site go here, available only in Spanish.

69th Festival del Film Locarno Lineup

Today Carlo Chatrian, Artistic Director of Locarno festival, announced the lineup with films that renew the tradition of an event devoted to cinematic discoveries. But most interesting is also the tribute to Abbas Kiarostami and Michael Cimino, both winners of Locarno awards.

Also today fest organizers announced some surprises and guests of Locarno69 and if you wish to read the official announcement go here, some of the news is the screening of The Girl with All the Gifts by Com McCarthy, Bill Pullman will receive the Execellence Award, David Linde will receive the Premio Raimondo Rezzonico, Alejandro Jodorowsky gets the Pardo d'Onore, Howard Shore the Vision Award, plus more.

Announced earlier, The Concorso Cineasti del Presente will open with I Had Nowhere to Go by Douglas Gordon, a film based on Jonas Mekas's diary. Carlo Chatrian, Artistic Director comments: “This year we decided to open the Concorso Cineasti del presente with a film that is the outcome of a collaboration between two internationally famous artists: Douglas Gordon, who for some years now has been interested in the “filmic event”, and Jonas Mekas, a magnificent 93-year-old, full of energy and still a fabulous storyteller. Although I do not want to reveal any more about this extraordinary project, I can say that Douglas Gordon offers us a truly sensorial experience, which challenges the concept of seeing, and links the idea of the present with that of memory”.

Announced last week, Roger Corman is the guest of honor at the Filmmakers Academy. Roger Corman will be paid tribute during the 69th edition of the Festival del film Locarno via screenings of two of his films. Guest of honor at the Filmmakers Academy, the training project for young directors, Corman has long been considered a cult filmmaker who helped change the way films are conceived, produced and directed.

Concorso Internazionale

In an edition of the festival powered by an energy that brooks no borders, the Concorso Internazionale presents 17 films that blow in from Japan to Portugal, from Bulgaria to Thailand.

Seventeen films and as many world premieres of which eight are directed by women. Newcomers vs returnees, experience vs youthfulness, discoveries vs already established talents, fiction, documentaries and hybrids. Seventeen different visions competing for the Pardo d’Oro.

Al Ma'wal Khodra Wal Wajh el Hassan (Brooks, Meadows and Lovely Faces), Yousry Nasrallah, Egypt
Bangkok Nites, Katsuya Tomita, Japan, France, Thailand, Laos
Correspondências, Rita Azevedo Gomes, Portugal (documentary)
ดาวคะนอง Dao Khanong (By the Time it Gets Dark), Anocha Suwichakornpong, Thailand, Netherlands, France and Qatar
Der Traumhafte Weg (The Dreamlike Path), Angela Schanelec, Germany
Godless, Ralitza Petrova, Bulgaria, Denmark and France
Hermia & Helena, Matías Piñeiro, USA and Argentina
Inimi Cicatrizate (Scarred Hearts), Radu Jude, Romania and Germany
Jeunesse (The Young One), Julien Samani, France and Portugal
風に濡れた女 Kaze ni Nureta Onna (Wet Woman in the Wind), Akihiko Shiota, Japan
La Idea de un Lago (The Idea of A Lake), Milagros Mumenthaler, Switzerland, Argentina and Qatar
La Prunelle de Mes Yeux (The Apple of My Eye), Axelle Ropert, France
Marija (Maria), Michael Koch, Germany and Switzerland
Mister Universo, Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel, Austria and Italy
O Ornitólogo (The Ornithologist), João Pedro Rodrigues, Portugal, France and Brazil
Ostatnia Rodzina (The Last Family), Jan P. Matuszyński, Poland
Slava (Glory), Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov, Bulgaria and Greece

Piazza Grande

An effervescent variety of blockbusters, arthouse films, debut movies, works by established masters. This is the main characteristic of a big screen which will lit up Piazza Grande from August 3 to August 13.

If the opening film of the Scottish director Colm McCarthy, The Girl with All the Gifts, will lead us into a dystopian future which is strictly connected to contemporary issues, the closing film - Ashutosh Gowariker's Mohenjo Daro - will see the return to Locarno of a big Indian production with a beautiful mix made of epics, music and dances.

Am Tag Als der Regen Kam (The Day It Rained), Gerd Oswald, Germany, 1959
Cessez-le-feu (Ceasefire), Emmanuel Courcol, France
Comboio de Sal e Açucar, Licínio de Azevedo, Portugal, Mozambique, France, South Africa and Brazil
Dans la forêt, Gilles Marchand, France and Sweden
I, Daniel Blake, Ken Loack, UK, France and Belgium
Interchange, Dain Iskandar Said, Malaysia and Indonesia
Jason Bourne, Paul Greengrass, USA
Le Ciel Attendra (Heaven Will Wait), Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar, France
Mohenjo Daro, Ashutosh Gowariker, India
Moka by Frédéric Mermoud, France and Switzerland
Paula, Christian Schwochow, Germany and France
Poesia Sin Fin (Endless Poetry), Alejandro Jodorowsky, France and Chile
터널 Teo-Neol (The Tunnel), Kim Seong-hun, South Korea
The Girl With All the Gifts, Colm McCarthy, UK
Vincent, Christophe Van Rompaey, France and Belgium
Vor der Morgenröte - Stefan Zweig in Amerika (Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe), Maria Schraders, Germany, France and Austria

Check available info and trailers @MOC

If you wish to learn the Concorso Cineasti del Presente lineup with 15 first and second films, go official site here.  Also to check the short films lineup for the Pardi di Domani in two different competition, one international and another national (Swiss), go official site here.

Carlo Chatrian announces the program, in English.



This is the first time that we get a clear idea of what must be going in parallel to all cinema activities as believe is the first time we can see what goes on in La Rotonda and gee, seems the Swiss really know how to party (LOL), take a look.



On top, La Rotonda absolutely has the best graphic identity with the leopard in an unbelievably good jumping position (or perhaps not jumping, just in a tree branch or maybe doing something else, lol). Enjoy!

1st Exposition of World Academy of Cinema Trophies

A few months ago the Portuguese Academy of Cinema organized the first ever exposition of the trophies given by Cinema Academies in the World. The exposition was part of the celebration of the Portuguese Academy Fifth Anniversary and consisted of twenty-eight trophies, including infamous Oscar but also less known statues like, for example, the one from the Lithuanian academy.

If you're a blog regular reader, you will know more awards than those listed but believe this effort should be emulated by Academies from larger cinema as is a great idea for those that enjoy the auto-celebration of cinema.

What follows is the expo catalog with trophy info in Portuguese and English. Enjoy!

The very interesting photo is of the Portuguese award Sophia seen from the bottom while laying down. Next Sophia awards ceremony will be on March 22.