The Law of the Sea

by Roberto Pugliese

A past that speaks to the present and a present that fears the future. This is the story of Salvatore Todaro, the commander of the submarine “Cappellini”, who in 1940 sank an armed enemy merchant ship in the Atlantic. Todaro then rescued the shipwrecked crew and, in accordance with the laws of the sea and at great risk, brought them to a safe harbor. The opening film, Comandante by Edoardo De Angelis, starring Pierfrancesco Favino, now holds an ethical significance that needs no emphasis. The Venice Days programme starts with The Sun Will Rise by Iranian filmmaker Ayat Najafi: in today’s Tehran, a theatre company is rehearsing Aristophanes’ Lysistrata when rioters and police clash. Theatre actors are also protagonists in Los océanos son los verdaderos continentes by Tommaso Santambrogio, a bitter look into contemporary Cuban society. The highlight of the day, however, is the awarding of the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement to the Italian filmmaker Liliana Cavani, who will also present her latest film, The Order of Time.

All the photocalls' Daily pick

friday, 8 september 2023

Survivors

Transitions and unexpected changes are at the heart of the last three titles in Competition. Kobieta Z... (Woman of), by the Polish filmmakers Małgorzata Szumowska and Michał Englert, is the painful story of a father who day after day experiences more discomfort with his identity. In Hors-saison by Stéphane Brizé, Guillaume Canet and Alba Rohrwacher play a couple who coincidentally find themselves at a spa years after their separation...

LEGGI

thursday, 7 september 2023

Coming of Age

A kind of magical realism opens the Competition. Holly, by Belgian director Fien Troch, tells the story of a teenager with unique premonitory and beneficial powers. With Paradise Is Burning, Mika Gustafson follows the struggles of three sisters abandoned by their mother. Adolescence is also the main topic explored in Gasoline Rainbow by Bill and Turner Ross, where a group of five teenagers embarks on a great escape in a van...

LEGGI

wednesday, 6 september 2023

Odysseys

In the competition today, Matteo Garrone’s Me Captain, the highly anticipated epic of Seydou Sarr and Moustapha Fall, two friends who leave Dakar, cross the desert, survive the Libyan hell, and finally embark for Europe. Ava DuVernay follows with Origin, based on Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Pulitzer Prize winner Isabel Wilkerson...

LEGGI

tuesday, 5 september 2023

Crossing the Border

With Enea, Pietro Castellitto embarks on an ambitious film, a story of friendship and downfall. Shot semi-covertly, Green Border by Agnieszka Holland portrays the conditions of refugees in the forest on the border between Poland and Belarus. Richard Linklater's Hit Man delves into the story of Gary Johnson, an undercover investigator for the police. A visionary and true maverick director, Shinya Tsukamoto, returns to the consequences of war with Shadow of Fire...

LEGGI

monday, 4 september 2023

In Between Two Fires

Woody Allen brings his Parisian and Francophone film Coup de chance to the Lido, a bourgeois drama starring Niels Schneider and Lou de Laâge; cinematography by Vittorio Storaro. The story revolves around a young couple threatened by the presence of a charming bohemian writer. Another bourgeois drama with much more dramatic atmospheres is Sofia Coppola's Priscilla (Competition), which tells the turbulent love story and betrayals of Elvis Presley (Jacob Elordi) and his wife Priscilla (Cailee Spaeny)...

LEGGI

sunday, 3 september 2023

Going Gothic

David Fincher, the brilliant and restless leader of post-Hollywood, returns to the Venice Competition with The Killer, a dark psychological thriller adapted from the graphic novel by Matz and Jacamon. In an eerie future, the French director Bertrand Bonello explores the dystopian world of La Bête, where Léa Seydoux pursues her own past in a society that fears emotions. In the German film Die Theorie von Allem by Timm Kröger, a scientist from the 1960s must face a genuine nightmare...

LEGGI

saturday, 2 september 2023

Let the Music Start

In Maestro, Bradley Cooper directs and plays the life of Leonard Bernstein, the most iconic, outgoing, and multifaceted musical personality of the 20th century, with a focus on his tumultuous relationship with his wife, Felicia (Carey Mulligan). A completely different tune is that of Texan rapper Travis Scott, the idol of young crowds, co-starring in AGGRO DR1FT, an experimental and neo-psychedelic immersion in a noir style by Harmony Korine, already a maverick in the American landscape...

LEGGI

friday, 1 september 2023

Creatures

A special, very-Italian day, starring youth trying to make their space in the world. In Competition, Saverio Costanzo presents Finally Dawn, a raw, piercing look on 1950s Cinecittà. A story of foiled aspirations and delicate equilibriums are all about An Endless Sunday (Orizzonti) by Alain Parroni, while in the Orizzonti Extra section, we will appreciate Micaela Ramazzotti’s directorial debut with Happiness, a story of emancipation for a brother and sister oppressed by their parents. Add to this the Biennale College’s entry, The Year of the Egg by debutant Claudio Casale.

LEGGI

thursday, 31 august 2023

Parallel Lives

A creator and a destructor – two lives, compared. In the main competition, we will today watch Ferrari by Michael Mann, starring an unrecognizable Adam Driver in the role of the car racing legend, and El Conde by Pablo Larraín, a grotesque horror variation on the difficult history of Chile, seeing Augusto Pinochet transforming into himself: a bloodthirsty vampire. But keep an eye on Dogman too, it marks Luc Besson's return to his typical adrenaline-fueled and hyperbolic style with the portrayal of a marginalized man in tight and vengeful communication with his loyal dogs.

LEGGI