34th Venice International Film Critics Week Award Winners

Today, Friday September 6, the Venice International Film Critics' Week, the independent and parallel section organized by the National Union of Italian Film Critics (SNCCI) during the 76th Venice International Film Festival conferred the awards for its thirty-fourth edition.

The BIG winner is All This Victory by Ahmad Ghossein as film collected not only the Grand Prize but also the Audience Award plus the Best Technical Contribution award a trifecta that suggest film is appreciated by the industry and audiences plus seems will also have high production values.  Not bad at all.

There is one more feature films award Verona Film Club Award that went to Scales by Shahad Ameen.  Also there are three awards for short films.

Award winners are in *BLUE.  To check winners at official site go here.

This year the section will run from August 28 to September 9, 2019.

Feature Films

Competition
(*) El Príncipe (The Prince), Sebastián Muñoz, Chile, Argentina and Belgium
جدار الصوت (*) Jeedar El Sot (All This Victory), Ahmad Ghossein, Lebanon, France and Qatar Grand Prize, Audience Award andBest Techincal Contribution Award winner
(*) Partenonas (Parthenon), Mantas Kvedaravičius, Lithuania, Ukraine and France
(*) Psykosia (Psychosia), Marie Grahtø, Denmark and Finlad
(*) Rare Beasts, Billie Piper, UK
سيدة البح (*) Sayidat Al Bahr Scales), Shahad Ameen, UAE, Iraq and Saudi Arabia Verona Film Club Award winner
(*) Tony Driver, Ascanio Petrini, Italy and Mexico

(*) Debut films competing for the Lion of the Future Award.

Special Events - Out of Competition
Opening Film: Bombay Rose, Gitanjali Rao, UK, India and France
Closing Film: Sanctorum, Joshua Gil, Mexico, Qatar and Dominican Republic

SIC@SIC Italian Short Films
The fourth edition of Short Italian Cinema @ Settimana Internazionale della Critica presents seven short films in competition by Italian directors who have not yet embarked on a full-lenght film, and two special events, all screened in world premiere. The program was born thanks to the synergy between the National Union of Italian Film Critics (SNCCI) and Istituto Luce-Cinecittà as one of the initiatives supporting the development of the new Italian cinema and promoting young filmmakers.

Short Films

Competition
Amateur, Simone Bozzelli
Ferine, Andrea Corsini
Fosca, Maria Chiara Venturini
Monologue, Lorenzo Landi and Michelangelo Mellony
*Il nostro tempo (Our Time), Veronica Spedicati Best Short winner
*Los Océanos son los Veradaderos Continentes (The Oceans are the Real Continents), Tommaso Santambrogio Best Technical Contribution winner
*Veronica no sa fumare (Veronica Can't Smoke), Chiara Marotta Best Short Film

Special Events - Out of Competion
Opening Short Film: Passatempo (Pastime), Gianni Amelio
Closing Short Film: Destino (Destiny), Bonifacio Angius

The Poster

A vortex of shining light: the official image of the 34th Venice Film Critics’ Week

"As we live in a world being divided more and more by politics, art remains one of the few means able to unite people no matter their origin. The Venice International Film Critics’ Week has always been a section that shines a light on the filmmakers of the future with an emphasis on diversity. 

With this visual I wanted to convey that feeling of creation without the constraints of labels, gender or nationality. These floating bodies heading toward a shining light, embracing a brighter future where all barriers have collapsed.” Christelle Halal

Born in Beirut in 1986, Christelle Halal received an M.A. in Illustration in 2009 from the Lebanese Academy of Fine-Arts where she currently teaches. She works as a freelancer in publishing and advertising. She has illustrated several children’s books and works as a storyboard artist for television commercials and film. She’s been designing the visuals of Maskoon Fantastic Film Festival since 2016.

Homage
A flame that never burns out: the new opening sequence of the Venice International Film Critics’ Week is an homage to the work of Kevin Jerome Everson

To inaugurate this new triennial of the Venice International Film Critics’ Week, we decided to have a new opening sequence that introduces our screenings during the festival. A sequence that intertwines with our work of researching for the new and challenging the present. These images, that come from one of the acts of Erie by Kevin Jerome Everson (2010), one of his most radical and surprising films, see little Matilda Washington observe with great intensity the glimmering flame of a candle. Then, something off screen attracts the little girl, her eyes look elsewhere. In a few seconds we have the antipodes of “great cinema”. We liked this sense of a constant research, of constant watching and of a strong questioning towards the world that only cinema manages to grasp in these ways, so radical, ineffable and sublime.

The sequence



Kevin Jerome Everson (Mansfield, Ohio – USA 1965) is an American director, sculptor, photographer and painter. His works have redefined contemporary documentary and experimental cinema. Author of over one hundred and fifty short films and nine long feature films, his works have been presented in numerous institutions such as the Centre Pompidou, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the REDCAT of Los Angeles, the Museum of Modern Art of New York, the Wurttenbergischer Kunstverein of Stuttgart, the American Academy of Rome and many more. His films have been presented at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, the Berlinale, Orizzonti – Venice Film Festival, Sundance and many others. The Swiss festival Visions du Réel dedicated a complete retrospective of Everson in 2012. Beholder of a unique gaze, Everson brings back at the center of the political and cultural debate the centrality of the African-American working class, overthrowing the margins between documentary, fiction and artistic installation.


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7/24/19
Next Thursday is the Biennale Cinema Official Selection press conference but a few days back organizers for the 2019 Settimana Internazionale della Critica announced this edition lineup with the usual seven (7) films in competition plus a few more out of competition and as special event.

As we know la Settimana is an independent section of the festival exclusively dedicated to first-time directors' full-lenght films. Worth mentioning that the selection is curated by the General Delegate of the Venice Critics’ Week Giona A. Nazzaro together with the members of the selection committee Paola Casella, Simone Emiliani, Beatrice Fiorentino and Roberto Manassero.

As mentioned there are seven films in competition plus two special events out of competition all presented as world premieres. In the short films section there are also seven films and two special events; worth mentioning that section opens with a Gianni Amelio short film.