Reality

Reality barges in in a million different shapes. Let’s start with an out of competition feature, an ‘unauthorized’ documentary by Russian-Canadian filmmaker Anastasia Trofimova. Her Russians at War about the current war in Ukraine seeks to steer clear of propaganda on either side, focusing instead on Russian soldiers’ bewilderment and disillusionment. From neighbouring Georgia comes filmmaker Dea Kulumbegashvili, who participates in the main Competition with her film April, the story of an abortionist midwife who defies law for humanitarian reasons. Iddu by Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza, starring an unrecognizable Elio Germano opposite Toni Servillo and Barbara Bobulova, is about mafia gangster Matteo Messina Denaro, a thirty-year fugitive who evaded capture until eight months before his eventual death. Also in the main Competition is the first Singaporean film at the VFF: Stranger Eyes by Siew Hua Yeo, a meta-linguistic thriller on truth, appearance, and looks. In the Orizzonti section, we’ll have the short film line-up as well as stories of women facing difficult, dangerous choices: South African film Carissa by Jason Jacobs and Devon Delmar, Tunisian film Aïcha by Mehdi Barsaoui, and Iranian movie Shahed (The Witness) by Nader Saeivar. In the International Film Critics’ Week programme, we shall see Perfumed with Mint by Muhammad Hamdy, a story about phantasms and obsession. In the Venice Days programme, Sugar Island, a film on a woman’s right to survive between magic and reality.