Saturday, July 31, 2021

18th Giornate degli Autori Lineup


The 18th edition of Giornate degli Autori will unspool during the Venice Film Festival, from September 1st to the 11th, with a pre-opening event on August 31st, thanks to a collaboration with BookCiak, Azione!, SNGCI and Isola Edipo.

This independent sidebar created by the Italian filmmakers' associations (ANAC and 100autori), under Giornate president Andrea Purgatori, will feature a competition lineup of 10 feature films and 6 special events selected by Artistic Director Gaia Furrer and screened in the Sala Perla at the Casinò of Venice, in an accord with the Venice Film Festival. It also offers a showcase of independent films made in Italy in the section Venetian Nights.

Giornate is also returning to the center of Venice for a day-long event at the Teatro Goldoni, organized jointly with Isola Edipo and featuring the world premieres of three journeys into the Self (Fellini e l'ombra, by Catherine McGilvray), the Fairy Tale (I nostri fantasmi, by Alessandro Capitani), and Bearing Witness, which will culminate in a talk with five spokespeople for inclusion, the directors behind the anthology film Isolation; Italy's Michele Placido, Germany's Julia von Heinz, Belgium's Jaco Van Dormael, France's Oliver Guerpillon, and England's Michael Winterbottom.

A two-headed jury: the 10 films in the running for the sidebar's only official prize the GdA Director's Award will be weighed and the winner selected by 27 young cinephiles coming from all 27 countries of the EU to take part in the 27 Times Cinema program. The jury is headed (and this is an absolute first) by two Bulgarian women directors and producers: Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova, lauded just days ago at Cannes for their most recent film screened in Un Certain Regard. For 11 days, the dynamic duo will work with the young jurors, dialogue on film and copyright, and take part in the final deliberations (livestreamed on the morning of September 10th), coordinated by Karel Och, director of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival.

Opening with a nod to Venice: Welcome Venice, the new film by Andrea Segre (a revelation exactly 10 years ago, at Giornate, for his Shun Li and the Poet, and this year a key player in the Festival's pre-opening event as well) is the opening film ushering in our Venetian Nights at the Sala Laguna, our unconventional space (the brainchild of Gaia Furrer and Silvia Jop, along with the programming) that returns a historic screening venue, long-forgotten, to the Lido, the Venetians, and film lovers at at large. Thanks to the friendship and generosity of the filmmaker and his producers, the Venetian Nights lineup opens with a potent, universal metaphor devoted to the city of the have-nots.

Valentina Pedicini and Cecilia Mangini: Giornate's pre-opening event on August 31st is reserved for these two very different figures, who shared, nevertheless, a commitment to individuality and documentary filmmaking. It will host the world premiere of the film Il mondo a scatti, by Paolo Pisanelli and Cecilia Mangini, in memory of the the latter, the greatest documentarian in Italian cinema.

The Venice Film Festival honors Citto Maselli: Giornate degli Autori is delighted to join in on the tribute to master filmmaker Citto Maselli, alongside SNCCI and the Critics' Week, which the Biennale has arranged as a special ceremony on Sunday, September 5th, at the Palazzo del Cinema.

The exhibitions at Giornate 2021: There are two this year, one of photography and the other comics, and they embody the spirit of our showcase here and now, poised between past and future. Ritratti di cinema: Antonietta De Lillo fotografa la Mostra is a marvelous collection of the shots that the future filmmaker, a young freelance photographer at the time, took in Venice in 1981 and 1982. Now, thanks to the support of the Fondazione CSC and the Film Commission Regione Campania, those photos rekindle memories of an unforgettable era in the Festival's history. In an accord with the Biennale, they will be on display at both the Sala Laguna and the Palazzo del Cinema.

The second exhibition, displayed "virtually" at Venice, is called Free Hughs. Curated by Giulio De Vita who created it for Pordenone's PAFF, with the collaboration of the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Jesi, the show is an evocative display of storyboards on the theme of hugs and embraces the present and future of humankind all designed by today's leading cartoonists in Italy and around the world. The show takes the form of a video installation on the Lido, before going ‘live' in Jesi on September 3rd and then travel to PAFF.

The 27 Times Cinema program: created in 2010, under the aegis of the European Parliament, and jointly organized by Giornate degli Autori, Europa Cinemas and Cineuropa.org, the initiative is a virtual campus that brings together 27 young cinephiles for 11 days. The participants have been selected by exhibitors of quality cinema in all 27 member countries of the EU to first serve on the Giornate jury during the Venice Film Festival, and then go on to become ambassadors for the LUX Audience Award back in their own countries. Thanks to an array of workshops, master classes, talks and social media activities, this young team will get a taste of all aspects of the Festival and feed into a real community than can only grow over the years.

The awards: Since 2014, Giornate has had a single official prize, the GdA Director's Award, assigned to one of the 10 films in competition and carrying a cash prize of €20,000, to be split between the filmmaker and the international distributor of the film. Giornate also hosts the award ceremonies for the BNL People's Choice Award and the Europa Cinemas Label, the winner of which is selected by a jury of European exhibitors. In addition, the first films competing at Giornate are in the running for the Luigi De Laurentiis Award, assigned by the Venice Film Festival to the best debut film in all of its sections.

The official selection: And then, naturally, there are the films themselves, those in competition, out of competition, and the ones in our showcase-in-a-showcase, Venetian Nights, devoted to Italian films. There are 16 titles in the Official Selection of which 10 in competition: 1 closing film out of competition, vying for the BNL People's Choice Award, and 5 special events; 6 first films, 22 countries represented; 18 women filmmakers invited, including the two directors of the shorts for Miu Miu Women's Tales; and 18 Italian films on the Venetian Nights lineup.

The Selection
Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova will be heading an unusual jury of 27 young cinephiles from every country in the European Union. This jury will be assigning the GdA Director's Award for the best film on the ten-title GdA competition lineup. The closing film, out of competition but running for the BNL People's Choice Award, will be Francesco Lettieri's Lovely Boy.

Competition
Opening Film: Shen Kong, Chen Guan, Macau
Al Garib (The Stranger), Ameer Fakher Eldin, Syria, Germany, Palestine and Qatar
Anatomia, Aleksandra Jankowska, Poland and France
Californie, Alessandro Cassigoli and Casey Kauffman, Italy
Deserto Particular, Aly Muritiba, Brazil and Portugal
Imaculat (Immaculate), Monica Stan and George Chiper-Lillemark, Romania
Madeleine Collins, Antoine Barraud, France
Piedra Noche (Dusk Stone), Iván Fund, Argentina, Chile and Spain
Tres (Out of Sync), Juanjo Giménez, Spain, Lithuania and France
Tu me ressembles (You Resemble Me), Dina Amer, Egypt, France and USA

Out of Competition
Closing Film: Lovely Boy, Francesco Lettieri, Italy

Special Screenings
Il Palazzo (The Palace), Federica Giacomo, Italy and Czech Republic
Il Silenzio Grande (The Great Silence), Alessandro Gassmann, Italy and Poland
Mizrahim, les oubliés de la Terre Promise (The Forgotten Ones), Michale Boganim, France
Senza Fine, Elisa Fuksas, Italy (documentary)
Three Minutes A Lenghthening, Bianca Stigter, Netherlands (documentary)

Miu Miu Women's Tales (short films)
Shangri-la, Isabel Sandoval, Italy and USA
I and The Stupid Boy, Kaouther Ben Hania, Italy and France

Venetian Nights
The edgiest offerings on the 2021 Giornate degli Autori slate are on show on our Venetian Nights lineup, which is a concentrate of the experimental tradition developed by Isola Edipo and Giornate in parallel. This is a new space jointly conceived by Giornate and Silvia Jop and devoted to the creative bonds between the film medium and the other arts, from theater to the visual arts and music.

Opening Film: Welcome Venice, Andrea Segre, Italy
Caveman il gigante nascosto, Tommaso Landucci, Italy and Switzerland (documentary)
Cùntami, Giovanna Taviani, Italy  (documentary)
Diteggiatura, Riccardo Giacconi, Italy  (documentary)
Fellini e l'ombra, Catherine McGilvaray, Italy and Switzerland  (documentary)
Giulia, Ciro De Caro, Italy
Hugo in Argentina, Stefano Knuchel, Switzerland (documentary)
I Nostri Fantasmi, Alessandro Capitani, Italy
Il Mondo a scatti, Cecilia Mangini and Paolo Pisanelli, Italy  (pre-opening event) (documentary)
Les Enfants de Cain, Keti Stamo, France, Albania and Italy (documentary)
Parole, Umberto Contarello, Italy (documentary)
Spin Time, Sabina Guzzanti, Italy  (documentary)
Una Relazione, Stefano Sardo, Italy

Medium-Lenght Films
Princesa, Stefania Muresu, Italy, 49' (documentary)
Tonino de Bernardi Un Tempo, Un Incontro, Daniele Segre, Italy, 52'  (documentary)

Short Films
Coriandoli, Maddalena Stornaiuolo, Italy, 9'
Trastwest, Ivano De Matteo, Italy, 18'
Isolation, Italy, Germany, France, Belgium, and UK (anthology film and documentary) (Special Screening - Inclusion Day 2021)
Death Close, Michele Placido, Italy
Two Fathers, Julia von Heinz, Germany
Liberty, Equality, Immunity, Olivier Guerpillon, France
Mourning in the Time of Coronavirus
, Jaco Van Dormael, Belgium
Isolation, Michael Winterbottom, UK

To check films at official site go here.

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