For many years now, Giornate degli Autori has offered the Lido a program of exceptional quality, complementing the Festival’s main lineup and enriching it with diverse voices from around the globe. Gaia Furrer, Artistic Director of the Venice Days, tells us about the 2024 edition.
How did you curate your selection this year, and what themes and geographies have emerged?
This year’s selection truly spans a wide range of ‘geographies.’ We explore underrepresented regions like Sudan, a country plagued by ongoing conflict, as depicted in the documentary Soudan, Souviens-Toi by French-Algerian journalist Hind Meddeb. We journey to Mongolia with To Kill a Mongolian Horse by writer-director Xiaoxuan Jiang, and to the Swiss Alps with the thriller Alpha by Jan-Willem van Ewijk. We also visit the Amazon with Marianna Brennand’s Manas Amazon, as well as Italy, Holland, and France. These diverse settings reveal a common thread, not preselected but naturally emerging from the films themselves: at the heart of these stories are characters who appear fragile on the surface but ultimately prove to be resilient guardians of an inner strength. They are often a bit eccentric, living on the fringes, yet they possess incredible courage. These films portray tragic events with a lightness that conveys a persistent will to resist and move forward. As one character in the short film Kora by Cláudia Varejão says, “To start over, you have to move forward.” This sentiment is beautifully captured in this year’s poster: a woman walking on a tightrope at a dizzying height, accompanied by the flight of herons, a symbol of perseverance in a world that both implodes and explodes around her, yet does not deter her from her path.
After the death of his mother, Rein begins working as a snowboard instructor in an alpine village. His routine is disrupted by the visit of his father, the charming Gijs, who flirts with his girlfriend Laura… Exasperated, Rein drags his father on a dangerous hike until an un...
The troubled relationship between Medea and Lado, a young Georgian involved in illegal antiquities trafficking in Russia, is nearing its end. Their love is tainted by the constant threats of a life devoted to crime, leading the girl to move away to the heart of Putin’s S...
The debut feature film by Isabella Torre, the closing film of the main section of the 2024 Giornate degli Autori, immerses the viewer in an atmosphere filled with strange presences. Basileia is set in Aspromonte, a small mountain village shrouded in fog and surrounded by inhos...
After a long marriage, Sima and Behzad decide to go their separate ways, while their young daughter Minoo is involved in a relationship with the teenager Keyvan. With a narrative that provides a social snapshot of modern Tehran, the first feature film by Iranian artist and dir...
Directing her first feature film, the Brazilian documentarian delves into the heart of the Amazon to give a voice to thousands of young women, silent victims of domestic violence. The story begins in Marajó, the largest river island on the planet, where thirteen-year-old Marc...
Inspired by the story of the same name by Polish writer Bruno Schulz, the twin directors, animators, and set designers Stephen and Timothy Quay return to the big screen with a highly anticipated live-action film set in the physical and mental labyrinth of a decaying nursing ho...
In her first feature film, the French screenwriter, who was previously an assistant director for Jacques Audiard, tells the story of Joy, a young orphaned and very devout woman whose horizon of events is limited to the church in the small, dull town where she lives. An unexpec...
Makenya is thirteen years old and pregnant. In addition to the unwanted pregnancy, there is the risk that her family will be suddenly relocated. In the small village surrounded by a sugarcane plantation, the only source of livelihood for the entire community, agricultural auto...
The third feature film by the Japanese director Kohei Igarashi, who was already present in the Orizzonti section of the Venice Film Festival in 2017 with The Night I Swam, is a love story that never takes place in the present: it either has been or will be. Accompanie...
Delicately addressing the themes of war and illness, director Ciro De Caro arrives at the Venice Days 2024 with his fourth feature film, set in the solitude of Roman nights. Anna and Cristi are two very different women sharing the same drama: unable to free themselves from the...
Saina, a day laborer and a nighttime performer, plays himself in this spectacular debut by the young Mongolian director Xiaoxuan Jiang. The film provides the audience with a candid portrayal of modern Mongolia, balancing between rural reality and capitalism. Against the backdr...
Georgina is an elderly transgender woman living on the outskirts of the Colombian department of La Guajira. Aware that she doesn’t have much time left, she decides to embark on a solitary journey through the desert to reunite with her siblings, who are also victims of th...
She is forced to accept her husband’s extramarital affairs; he is a staunch advocate of the “open relationship,” at least until she is the one who cheats… Based on the play of the same name by Franca Rame and Dario Fo, the film presents the tragicomic s...
Portuguese director Cláudia Varejão is back in Venice with a story that revolves around her homeland and her work as a photographer. Kora tells the stories of refugee women living in Portugal. Through photographs of loved ones, carefully preserved, their entire past reappear...
A paradisiacal island, surrounded by crystal-clear waters, where the lives of countless characters intertwine along the paths of existence. Loosely inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy, the Serbian documentarian creates a personal purgatory where the protagonists, having escape...
For seventeen years, Marie Losier has documented the vibrant daily life of Peaches, a queer icon and queen of Canadian punk-electro, with whom she has developed a strong friendship over time. From stages around the world to the intimacy of family relationships, the performer&#...
Through the stories of four young activists, the film brings global attention back to the silent war consuming the lands of Sudan: from sit-ins in front of the armed forces to the collective massacre of 2019, up to the outbreak of conflict, the Franco-Tunisian director present...
Women’s Cinema: Alice Rohrwacher’s Lifetime Achievement Award and Federica Di Giacomo’s SIAE Award for Creative Talent, following the opening of the Days with Coppia aperta quasi spalancata. It’s a great moment for women’s cinema, both in Italy and beyond.
This year, 18 out of the 25 films in our program are directed by women, marking a very positive year for female representation. Federica Di Giacomo’s documentary features three key women: Federica Di Giacomo as the director, Chiara Francini as the actress, protagonist, and producer, and Franca Rame, the author of the text on which the film is based, whom we honored during the opening. Additionally, we continue our Miu Miu Women’s Tales project, which we’ve been running for 12 years in partnership with Miu Miu, celebrating female creativity. We also have five films in competition directed by women and six out of nine films in the Venetian Nights section are by female directors. Almost all our special out-of-competition events are also helmed by women. While we’re still not at full parity, we’re seeing a significant increase in submissions from women, and we’re thrilled about this progress.
Many operational and content partners are helping to expand the reach of the Giornate. What kind of ground do you cultivate through these synergies, even physically, by occupying increasingly strategic spaces at the Festival?
Our primary collaboration is with Isola Edipo and its director, Silvia Jop. Together, we’ve revitalized the Sala Laguna, a cinema on the Lido that had been closed for forty years. In 2020, despite the challenges of Covid, we joyfully reopened this space, providing the Lido community with a cinema that’s accessible to all—free of charge and without the need for accreditation. We dedicated Sala Laguna to the memory of Valentina Pedicini, a talented director and documentarian who presented her first fiction work at the Giornate. The Sala Laguna now hosts the Venetian Nights program, a non-competitive section that features an Italian film each evening. The programming is very eclectic, with experimental films shown alongside more commercially robust productions, archival documentaries, observational documentaries, comedies, and deeply serious films. This variety reflects our commitment to exploring diverse narratives and expanding the cinematic experience at the Festival.
Giornate is increasingly embracing animation, and the film by the Quay brothers is a true gem for connoisseurs. How did you connect with them?
Stephen and Timothy Quay have only made three feature films, yet they are regarded as masters in the history of cinema. It wasn’t obvious that they would agree to participate, but with great humility and a willingness to engage, they have given us this dreamlike and truly surprising film, Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass. This film is based on a story by the Polish author, Bruno Schulz, and it was shot nearly twenty years after their previous work. The Quay brothers have had a significant influence on a master like Terry Gilliam, and even Christopher Nolan dedicated a documentary to them. What can I say? It’s a beautiful gift for the Festival audience.
Are there any updates on the film Antikvari, which was stalled due to a script copyright issue? Will we get to see it?
Antikvari, the second film by Georgian director Rusudan Glurjidze, was the first film we invited. It tells a love story set in 2006, the year when the Russians illegally expelled thousands of Georgians from Russia. It’s a film with a significant political background, and we loved how it highlights personal and emotional stories within the context of a people’s tragedy. Together with the Biennale, we had to deal with a ruling from the Venice Tribunal regarding a rights issue related to the film’s screenplay. We had to suspend the first two screenings to protect the film and the director as much as possible. Fortunately, our lawyers acted in record time to obtain a new ruling from the Tribunal to safeguard the artist’s freedom of expression, and now we are able to hold the third screening, scheduled for September 6th at 11 AM in Sala Perla, with the author present.
Could you share your thoughts on this year’s Giornate degli Autori Jury?
This year, we have an exceptionally diverse jury composed of ten young European cinema professionals, including distributors, programmers, selectors, and critics. They are led by British director Joanna Hogg, known for her collaborations with Tilda Swinton and films produced by Martin Scorsese. It is a great honor for us to have her as the jury president.
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