23rd Giornate degli Autori Lineup

A few hours back organizers announced the activities tht will take place during the current edition of the Giornate degli Autori. This year the Giornate honors Giorgio Gosetti, the founder of the section in 2004 which during twenty-three uninterupted years was the guiding spirit of the organization and the general delegate of this independent sidebar of La Mostra. He passed last March.

To refresh our memory, the Giornate degli Autori was born in 2004, as an independent sidebar of the Venice Film Festival, modeled on the prestigious ‘Directors’ Fortnight’ of the Cannes Festival and promoted by the associations of Italian film directors and authors (ANAC and 100autori). The aim of the event is to draw attention to high quality cinema, without any kind of restriction, with special care for innovation, research, originality and independence.

“This edition carries with it a deep void and a deep gratitude,” declares Artistic Director Gaia Furrer. “We owe to Giorgio the very idea for this free arena we inhabit, along with his faith in the new directions of cinema and his stubborn, loving determination to build and consolidate, year after year, a community of men and women filmmakers and audiences. This year, Giornate springs from the desire to honor this legacy by continuing to do what Giorgio taught us: seek out, discover, go wrong, become passionate about, and believe in cinema and in those who make it happen.”

The 23rd edition of Giornate degli Autori, promoted by ANAC and 100autori, takes place during the 83rd Venice International Film Festival from September 2nd to September 12th, 2026, and is made possible by the crucial collaboration with the Venice Biennale and the support of the Ministry of Culture’s Directorate General for Cinema and Audiovisual (DGCA) and SIAE, which, as well as assigning the Andrea Purgatori Lifetime Achievement Award for Creative Talent, for the first time is Main Sponsor of the event, as well as promoter of various shared initiatives that will continue after Venice has concluded.

The Poster

The world-renowned Japanese photographer Rinko Kawauchi graces the poster for the 2026 edition of Giornate degli Autori with an original photograph. Amidst the constant bombardment of stimuli that has become the paradigm for our interconnected world of digital networks, the photography of Rinko Kawauchi is a balm for the soul. The extraordinary is no longer screamed to the rooftops or underscored by bombastic graphics; it’s an epiphany that springs from an intense and silent observation of the ordinary, that microcosm of small places, sensations, gestures, and objects we are surrounded by. The detail here reveals the universal, while everyday life becomes a magical foreign land to rediscover.

The image selected for Giornate degli Autori’s poster this year is a summa of Rinko Kawauchi’s poetics and captures, in its simplicity, a precise moment: the moment when we are walking along and suddenly look up at the sky, only to strike upon a ray of light between the leaves of the trees. Our surprise at this encounter, a seemingly common occurrence, becomes the starting point for a impromptu journey that will illuminate us – a voyage through our gaze and others’ as well, filtered by the sensibility of so many different filmmakers who, like prisms ablaze with the light of passion and curiosity, will carry our audiences at this edition of Giornate degli Autori in the direction of new ways to read the world.

The Official Selection

The lineup this year draws on 1,036 submissions from 114 countries and features 25 world premieres, of which 13 are Italian and 14 directed by women; 10 films in competition, 1 closing film out of competition, 5 special events, and the showcase of 9 titles in Venetian Nights, co-organized with Isola Edipo.

Competition
Opening Film: My Notes On Mars, Lili Horvàt, Hungary and USA
A Veces Me Entra Tristeza, Otras Veces Rebelión (Sometimes Sadness, Sometimes Rebellion), María Aparicio, Argentina and Spain
Agata The Writer, Kuba Dorabialski, Australia
Balcanica, Nicola Sorcinelli, Italy, Serbia, and Croatia (1st film)
Camouflage, Mykyta Gibalenko, Germany and Lithuania (1st film)
دستهایم را در باغچه می‌کارم Dasthayam ra dar baghche mikaram (I Plant My Hand in the Garden), Boris Hadžija and Hoda Taheri, Germany, USA and Serbia (docu-fiction 1st film)
Dear Ajayi, Damilola Orimogunje, Nigeria and Germany
Les Indes, Pauline Julier and Nicolas Chapoulier, Switzerland and Spain
Salón de Belleza, Nathalia Acevedo, Mexico and France (1st film)
Une Femme Aujourd'hui (A Woman Today), Robert Guédiguian, France and Italy

Competition Jury
President: Carla Simon, director, Spain
Hania Mroué, film programmer and distributor, Lebanon
Sara Fgaier, director, Italy

Out of Competition
Closing Film: Peau d'homme (Man's Skin), Léa Domenach, France

Special Events
البرانية Al Baraneya, Ashgan El-Hamus, Netherlands, Egypt, Belgium, and Saudi Arabia (1st film)
Carla Lonzi, Dentro e Fuori dal Mondo (Carla Lonzi, A Feminist Story), Francesca Archibugi, Italy (documentary)
El Fantasma (The Phantom), Ignacio Masllorens and David Lamelas, Argentina (docu-essay-experimental)
Il Massacro (The Massacre), Cosimo Messeri, Italy (docufiction)
Se Venisse anche l'Inferno (Even If Hell Came), Samuele Rossi, Italy

Miu Miu Women's Tales - Short Films
#31 Discipline, Mona Fastvold, USA 14'
#32 Avec Kim (With Kim), Claire Denis, France

Venetian Nights
Anatomia di Un Ritratto (Anatomy of A Portrait), Francesco Clerici and Mattia Colombo, Switzerland and Italy (documentary)
Auber 89, Giuseppe Schillaci, France and Italy (documentary)
Domenica Capitale - Genere Domenicale (Capital Sunday, Sunday Gen), Giovanna Giuliani, Italy (documentary)
Il Mestiere (The Craft), Beppe Tufarulo, Italy, Belgium, and France
La Leggenda del Deserto ( The Legend of the Dessert), Elisabetta Giannini, Italy (documentary)
Memoria del Lampo (Memories of Lightning), Riccardo Giacconi, Italy (documentary)
Scarpe Rotte, Roberta Torre, Italy
Si sveglia e sbadiglia, il gatto; poi l’amore (The Cat Wakes Up and Yawns; then Love), Federico Francioni and Samuele Sestieri, Italy
Uno Si Distrae Al Bivio (Southern Peasants), Alessandra Lancellotti, Italy (documentary)

To check available trailer, film clips poster and/or film images to MOC here.

To check info about each film go official site here.