At the heart of Isola Edipo, The Edipo Re Inclusion and Sustainability Award accompanies the Venice Film Festival with a reflection on languages, rights, and memory. We spoke with Silvia Jop, artistic director, who explains the selection criteria, new juries, and perspectives opened by dialogue with younger generations.
What did you look for in this year’s selections, and what idea of “inclusion” and “sustainability” do you want to convey to the audience through the Award?
“Inclusion and sustainability” is a concept I use every year as a guiding principle in film selection. When we first started using these terms, they weren’t as overused as they are today. Unfortunately, now they are often applied didactically, losing their meaning. As Director of the Award, I focus on titles that address these themes in ways that are far from didactic. With the twelve selected works, drawn from the four sections of the Festival (Main Competition, Orizzonti, Critics’ Week, Giornate degli Autori), I aim to highlight the diversity of languages and stories through which contemporary cinema engages with issues of key importance, whether they concern the rights of populations facing oppression or the life of a single tree, always transcending restrictive notions of boundaries, both geographic and metaphorical. At the same time, I try to select films in a way that allows the jury to find its own path within the selection, avoiding rigid categorization. Dialogue with the section representatives is also invaluable—they know the Award’s identity and bring perspectives aligned with our curatorial vision.
What criteria guided the composition of the jury this year? What did you look for in the jurors?
My goal is always to bring together intellectuals and artists from different experiences. Being Venetian, I am a woman of bridges, so I focus on creating connections both among the selected films and the chosen jurors. This edition features writer Eleonora Marangoni, director Valerio Mieli, and musician Motta – three figures I deeply admire, both for their work and for their capacity to step away from hyper-productivity. They speak only when they have something meaningful to say and consistently uphold an ethical stance that aligns with the spirit of this Award.
AI and dystopia: what will cinema look like in the future? It’s 2093, and Kuve is in a remote village documenting war devastation when he meets another young filmmaker, Mumbi. She challenges him to avoid using AI in his next film, revealing the power of human creativity. Ami...
In a world where millions of children grow up in war, this autobiographical film is a dramatic, poetic cry against the cycle of violence passed down through generations. The backdrop of the young protagonist Vladlena’s story is the homeland of director Vladlena Sandu, born i...
Unconventional family dynamics unfold in a microcosm of seven women: mothers, aunts, and daughters fighting together to save their home from debt. Through the pure eyes of childhood, young Roberta observes this struggle, with a personal growth that influences the other women. ...
In a remote desert border zone, two enemy soldiers find themselves isolated, far from civilization and central powers. In this void of reference points, their identities and allegiances dissolve, giving way to an unlikely friendship. The film becomes a reflection on the fragil...
A story of female emancipation in Sudan told through the eyes of Nafisa, a teenager raised on tales of resistance against British colonizers told by her grandmother. The peace of her village, built around a cotton farm, is suddenly threatened by the arrival of a businessman p...
“Cinema in its purest form, caught between light and dark, in which political urgency is transfigured into a hypnotic experience”: this is how Beatrice Fiorentino, curator of SIC, describes Waking Hours, the only documentary in this year’s Critcs’ Week...
Known for the hyper-pop aesthetic of his music videos – many created in collaboration with rapper and producer Bad Bunny, who also appears in the film – Stillz makes his feature debut, produced by Harmony Korine.
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Shafi, 4, and his sister Somira, 9, leave a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh to reach Malaysia and reunite with a relative who emigrated for work. Guided by the pure gaze of childhood, they undertake a perilous journey filled with hope, fear, and resilience. Their odyssey b...
Trieste, September 2007. Fred (Stella Wendick), a bold and exuberant seventeen-year-old from Sweden, arrives in the city for her final year of high school at a technical institute. The only girl in a class of boys, she immediately draws everyone’s attention, especially that ...
The “Cinema of Inclusion” project, born from the collaboration of Isola Edipo, Giornate degli Autori, and Fondation Cartier, hosted authors like Céline Sciamma, Caroline Poggi, Jonathan Vinel, and Andrea Tulli. Why has adolescence become a key focus for reflecting on inclusion?
Younger generations are the people who will build and sustain the future, yet they are often approached in a paternalistic and superficial way. We wanted to turn Sala Laguna into the educational heart of the Venice Film Festival, creating a space where students could experience a rich visual and relational immersion alongside a diverse audience. The program targets students from Ca’ Foscari University and IUAV, and alongside the Official Jury, we now include a Youth Jury, recently expanded to incorporate Side Academy, a leading school in animation and special effects. As Céline Sciamma said during yesterday’s session, “The spread of expressive languages – both audiovisual and operational – puts today’s youth in the position to produce tomorrow’s first-hand accounts of reality.” Having a director like Sciamma recognize their authority gives these young people a rare sense of confidence.
You and Labodif dedicated a program to Carla Lonzi, a key figure in Italian feminism. Why was it important to bring Lonzi into a film festival context?
For two years we have worked with Labodif, a research, training, and communication institute focused on gender differences, because of their unique perspective: the courage to discuss difference without denying equality. At a time when Carla Lonzi is becoming mainstream—a trend that inevitably flattens her figure – we chose Labodif because they have studied her work for over thirty years. As Gianna Mazzini noted, cinema is first and foremost about formulating an idea and exercising a point of view. Lonzi’s self-representation – at a time before selfies existed—offers a crucial model for anyone engaging with cinema today. There is still a need to address difference, as the industry has yet to fully respect women’s presence. Selection committees continue to choose far fewer female directors than male, reflecting structural issues in the film production system. It is essential to constantly highlight and problematize this topic, ensuring that women have the courage to fully assert their perspectives.
The “Basaglian baker” project and the short film Manicomi per impazzire explore Basaglia’s legacy in different ways, from shared bread to testimony about former psychiatric hospitals. How do you approach bridging past and present in this delicate context, and what messages are most urgent today, in the face of a possible return to institutionalized logic?
Even in “peaceful times,” it is important to maintain spiritual and existential exercises to preserve balance. The moment we demonstrated that people with mental health challenges could be supported differently –without institutionalization – must always be remembered. Today, as we witness a troubling regression, with restraints being used again not only in mental health but more broadly in care for disabled and elderly people, it is crucial to revisit that history. We must activate the tools it provides to ensure the rights of all are respected.
