Venice parallel section Giornate degli Autori has unveiled the line-up for its 22nd edition.
The main competition, showcasing 10 features, will open with Ukrainian artist and filmmaker Vladlena Sandu’s Memory, a deeply personal work piecing together childhood memories of life in Chechnya’s capital of Grozny amid the violence of the First Chechen War.
The Chechen Wars also looms large in exiled Germany-based Russian director Nastia Korkia’s Short Summer, about an eight -year-old girl vacationing with her grandparents as their marriage crumbles and the conflict in the northern Caucasus spills into everyday Russian life.
Further contenders include Spanish director Gabriel Azorín Last Night I Conquered the City of Thebes, in which two contemporary teenagers connect with two Ancient Rome soldiers in a space out of time – thermal springs, by night. – where they speak of friendship, solitude, and the fear of losing those they love.
Kenyan filmmaker Damien Hauser, who made waves with 2024 drama After the Long Rains, will present Memory of Princess Mumbi, dystopian fable set in 2093 in an imaginary Africa and following a young filmmaker who sets off to make a documentary about a global conflict that exploded twenty years earlier, when humankind handed over control to AI.
Exiled Iranian filmmakers Firouzeh Khosrovani (Radiograph of a Family) and Morteza Ahmadvand are also in competition with Past Future Continuous, about a woman who fled Iran after the Islamic Revolution and has never gone back. She can only observe her parents on the security cameras installed in their home in Tehran. The reality of this digital connection serves as the heart of the film.
It is one of two Iranian-directed films in competition alongside Inside Amir by Amir Azizi, which is described as a love letter to the city of Tehran and a personal exploration of the doubts that surface before the act of leaving one’s own country.
Mexican actress Mayra Hermosillo’s will present her directorial debut Vainilla revolving around seven women– grandmothers, mothers, aunts, daughters and a domestic who is part of the family – living together in cramped accommodation in 1980s Mexico.
Lebanese director Cyril Aris complete with drama A Sad and Beautiful World, exploring three decades of Lebanese history through the romantic relationship between a man and a woman born the same day during the bombings, then separated, and only much later reunited, by chance.
Further titles include Greek directors Krysianna B. Papadakis and Stergios Dinopoulos’s Bearcave about the unspoken love between two young women in a village laden with traditions and patriarchal expectations,and Italian filmmaker Nicolangelo Gelormini’s La Gioia, starring Valeria Golino and Jasmine Trinca as two women with unsatisfying lives in Turin, opposite rising star Saul Nanni, as a young man who could be their answer to another existence.
The jury for GdA Director’s Award (a cash prize of €20,000 for the director and international distributor) will be the jury headed by Norwegian writer and director Dag Johan Haugerud, winner of the Golden Bear at the 2025 Berlinale and whose breakout film, Barn, premiered at Giornate 2019.
He will be joined Francesca Andreoli, Italian producer of Vermiglio, the Franco-Palestinian filmmaker Lina Soualem, who participated in GdA with Bye Bye Tiberias in 2023, New York’s MoMA film curator Josh Siegel; and Tunisian cinematographer Sofian El Fani (La vie d’Adèle, Timbuktu).
In other program highlights, Italian director Gianni Di Gregorio’s comedy Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don’t (Come ti muovi, sbagli)will close the selection.
The actor and director, who won the Lion of the Future for his hit Pranzo di ferragosto in 2008, also plays a retired professor whose placid and monotonous existence of a shaken up by a surprise visit from his daughter (Greta Scarano) and rowdy grandchildren.
Another five films will play as Special Events: Sharunas Bartas’s Laguna, exploring the question of personal loss and inspired by the death of his older daughter; Claire Simon’s biodoc Writing Life about Nobel Prize- winning novelist Annie Ernaux; Nicolas Wadimoff’s Who Is Still Alive, about nine Palestinian refugees from Gaza exploring their experiences through theater; Lana Daher’s experimental work Do You Love Me exploring Lebanon’s constantly moving identity; and Gianluca Matarrese’s The Peaceful Life (Il quieto vivere), mixing elements of documentary form and the mise-en-scène to depict a family feud.
GdA Artistic Director Gaia Furrer noted the themes such as memory, personal history, and cultural identity running through this year’s selection.
“In many of the titles selected, the goal is life, building lives, relationships”, she said. “One tries to process grief to overcome it and try hard to see the world as a hospitable place. To fill in the distance born of exile.
“In the stories we present in this year’s edition of Giornate degli Autori, what often surfaces is a stubborn attempt to patch up the ruptures with our past, with the Other, with ourselves. Love becomes an act of rebellion; memory and remembrance a political gesture; childhood and adolescence times of truth.”
Giornate degli Autori runs from August 27 to September 6.
Full Lineup
OFFICIAL COMPETITIONMEMORY (OPENING FILM)Director: Vladlena SanduProduction: LIMITLESSFrance, Netherlands
LA GIOIADirector: Nicolangelo GelorminiProduction: HT Film SrlItaly
BEARCAVEDirector: Stergios Dinopoulos, Krysianna PapadakisProduction: Pucci ProductionsGreece, UK
SHORT SUMMERDirector: Nastia KorkiaProduction: TamTamGermany, France, Serbia
A SAD AND BEAUTIFUL WORLDDirector: Cyril ArisProduction: Abbout ProductionsLebanon, USA, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Qatar
PAST FUTURE CONTINOUSDirectors: Firouzeh Khosrovani and Morteza AhmadvandProduction: Fifi Film, Antipode Films, Zalab filmsIran, Norway, Italy
MEMORY OF PRINCESS MUMBIDirector: Damien HauserKenya, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland
VAINILLADirector: Mayra HermosilloProduction: REDRUMMexico
LAST NIGHT I CONQUERED THE CITY OF THEBESDirector: Gabriel AzorínProduction: DVEIN FILMSSpain, Portugal
INSIDE AMIRDirector: Amir AziziProduction: Amir Azizi, ELham Azizi, Ali Azizi ([email protected])Iran
OUT OF COMPETITIONDAMNED IF YOU DO, DAMNED IF YOU DON’T (CLOSING FILM)Director: Gianni Di GregorioProduction: Bibi Film, Rai Cinema, Les Films du PoissonItaly, France
SPECIAL EVENTSLAGUNADirector: Sharunas BartasProduction: KinoElektronLithuania, France
WRITING LIFE – ANNIE ERNAUX THROUGH THE EYES OF HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTSDirector: Claire SimonProduction: ROSEBUD PRODUCTIONSFrance
THE PEACEFUL LIFE – A TRAGIC COMEDY ABOUT HATE, FAMILY, AND OTHER QUIET THINGSDirector: Gianluca MatarreseProduction: Faber ProduzioniItaly
WHO IS STILL ALIVEDirector: Nicolas WadimoffProduction: Akka FilmsSwitzerland, France
DO YOU LOVE MEDirector: Lana DaherProduction: Films de Force MajeureFrance
NOTTI VENEZIANE (Venetian Nights)6:06Director: Tekla TaidelliProduction: Argo Film – Tranky FilmItaly
AMATADirector: Elisa AmorusoItaly
CONFITEORDirector: Bonifacio AngiusItaly, Poland
UNA COSA VICINADirector: Loris NeseProduction: Lapazio FilmItaly
DOM (OPENING FILM NOTTI VENEZIANE)Director: Massimiliano BattistellaProduction: Kama Productions / Mess SarajevoItaly, Bosnia-Herzegovina
FILM DI STATO Director: Roland SejkoItaly
INDIETRO COSÌDirector: Antonio MorabitoItaly
LIFE BEYOND THE PINE CURTAINDirector: Giovanni TroiloItaly
TONI, MIO PADREDirector: Anna NegriProduction: MIR Cinematografic
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