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The first feature films of the 2024 Venice Film Festival lineup have been unveiled through the Giornate Degli Autori section. Artistic Director Gaia Furrer’s programming team has selected sixteen films—ten competition titles and six special screenings—excluding the Venetian Nights section for Italian cinema. No surprises here – most of these films were not on our radar. A docu-filmmaker who has been on the Lido for her last two features, Federica Di Giacomo follows 2016’s Deliver Us (Winner of the Orizzonti Award) and 2021’s Il palazzo (also a Giornate Degli Autori selecrtion) with the pre-opening film of the section in The Open Couple.…...

The Quay Brothers’ Sanatorium Under The Sign Of The Hour Glass, and Marie Losier’s biopic of feminist singer Peaches are among the line-up for this year’s Giornate degli Autori.

The independent sidebar of the Venice Film Festival runs from August 28-September 7 and has 10 films in competition.

Sanatorium Under The Sign Of The Hour Glass is a blend of stop-motion animation and live action, inspired by the story collection of the same name by Polish writer Bruno Schulz where the search for his late father becomes a metaphysical journey.

It is the only the third feature from UK-based animators the Quay Brothers,...

The Quay Brothers’ Sanatorium Under The Sign Of The Hour Glass, and Marie Losier’s biopic of feminist singer Peaches are among the line-up for this year’s Giornate degli Autori.

The independent sidebar of the Venice Film Festival runs from August 28-September 7 and has 10 films in competition.

Sanatorium Under The Sign Of The Hour Glass is a blend of stop-motion animation and live action, inspired by the story collection of the same name by Polish writer Bruno Schulz where the search for his late father becomes a metaphysical journey.

It is the only the third feature from UK-based animators the Quay Brothers,...

The Giornate Degli Autori, simply known as Venice Days, has unveiled its 2024 lineup.

The independently run event, which takes place alongside the Venice Film Festival, will this year follow a theme of creatures “poised over an abyss, walking a tightrope.” “To reach the other side, or else to escape from something behind them, or just because, seen from above — lost in time, lost in space — things look very different,” event organizers said.

The only Italian title in competition is Ciro De Caro’s Taxi Monamour, about two women who lose their way yet stubbornly persist in living life as they wish. Dutch filmmaker Jan-Willem Van Ewijk’s third feature film, Alpha., follows a troubled father-son relationship set high in the Swiss Alps.

French filmmaker Marie Losier revisits the feminist singer and performer Peaches and a 14-year-long friendship in Peaches Goes Bananas, shot over the course of 17 years, while the directorial debut of Shahab Fotouhi,...

Films directed by women dominate the Venice Film Festival’s independently run Giornate Degli Autori, which has unveiled a lineup full of first works and special events including “Peaches Goes Bananas,” French filmmaker Marie Losier’s tribute to iconic Canadian electropop provocateur Peaches.

Shot over the course of 17 years, “Peaches Goes Bananas” provides an intimate portrait of the former schoolteacher, who during the 1980s moved from Canada to Berlin and became a queer feminist icon, breaking taboos and “transforming her body into art,” as the doc’s synopsis puts it.

The competition of the Giornate – which is also known as Venice Days – comprises 10 world premieres, six of which are first works, within a selection that artistic director Gaia Furrer described in her notes as “rigorous” and “stylistically eclectic.”

Furer underlined that 16 out of the section’s 25 titles are directed by women, a fact she called significant “because many of them...

The programme for the 2021 Venice Film Festival has been unveiled, and includes new films from Pedro Almodóvar, Jane Campion, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Michelangelo Frammartino, Pablo Larraín, Paul Schrader, Ridley Scott, and more.Parallel MothersCOMPETITIONParallel Mothers (Pedro Almodóvar)Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon (Ana Lily Amirpour)Un Autre Monde (Stephane Brize)The Power of the Dog (Jane Campion)America LatinaL’Evenement (Audrey Diwan)Official CompetitionThe Hole (Michelangelo Frammartino)Sundown (Michel Franco)Lost Illusions (Xavier Giannoli)The Lost Daughter (Maggie Gyllenhaal)Spencer (Pablo Larrain)Freaks Out (Gabriele Mainetti)Qui Rido Io (Mario Martone)On The Job: The Missing 8 (Erik Matti)Leave No Traces (Jan P. Matuszyński)Captain Volkonogov EscapedThe Card Counter (Paul Schrader)The Hand of God (Paolo Sorrentino)Reflection (Valentyn Vasyanovych)The Box (Lorenzo Vigas)Out Of COMPETITIONFeaturesDune (Denis Villeneuve)Il Bambino Nascosto (Roberto Andò)Les Choses Humaines (Yvan Attal)Ariaferma (Leonardo Di Costanzo)Halloween Kills (David Gordon Green...

“Madeleine Collins,” the buzzy psychological drama directed by France’s Antoine Barraud (“Portrait of the Artist”) and toplined by popular Belgian actress Virginie Efira who plays the lesbian nun in Paul Verhoeven’s “Benedetta,” is among ten competition titles set to launch from the Venice Film Festival’s independently run Venice Days section.

The Venice section modeled around the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight is largely made up of international first works this year. All entries are world premieres.

Besides “Madeleine” in which Efira (pictured) plays a woman who leads a double life –– and which also features Nadav Lapid, who is also the Israeli director of “Synonyms” and also Jacqueline Bisset –– the three other pics competing in Venice Days that are not first works are: the drama “Private Desert,” by Brazilian director Aly Muritiba (“Rust”) that is centered around a 40-year-old-cop’s Internet love interest who goes missing; “Dusk Stone,” by Argentina...

When Italian sales company True Colours launched from Rome’s Mia market five years ago, international prospects for cinema Italiano titles that were not directed by a handful of name auteurs, such as Nanni Moretti, Matteo Garrone and Paolo Sorrentino, had gotten rather dim.

Italian cinema was being sold around the world mostly by foreign sales outfits that had become the preferred global channel for many of Italy’s producers, partly because they provided minimum guarantees that helped close their budgets and that local sellers could not afford. The problem was that lots of exportable Italian product was being overlooked.

“There was a gap,” says veteran distributor-producer Andrea Occhipinti, head of Lucky Red. As a producer, Occhipinti adds, he was unhappy with how his movies were being handled internationally by non-Italian companies. So in 2015 Lucky Red joined forces with production company Indigo Film (“The Great Beauty”) and they formed True Colours.

Most international film industry events have been put on hold — or put online — during the coronavirus pandemic but the 2020 edition of European Work in Progress is going ahead in person in Cologne, Germany next week.

Some 28 in-development film projects from 34 European countries will pitch to potential partners at the three-day showcase, which runs Oct. 5-7. This year’s lineup includes new works from German art-house director Dominik Graf (Beloved Sisters) and Italy’s Federica Di Giacomo (Deliver Us) and crisscrosses all genres and styles, from thrillers to musicals, documentaries to dystopian drama.

Di Giacomo, whose ...

Most international film industry events have been put on hold — or put online — during the coronavirus pandemic but the 2020 edition of European Work in Progress is going ahead in person in Cologne, Germany next week.

Some 28 in-development film projects from 34 European countries will pitch to potential partners at the three-day showcase, which runs Oct. 5-7. This year’s lineup includes new works from German art-house director Dominik Graf (Beloved Sisters) and Italy’s Federica Di Giacomo (Deliver Us) and crisscrosses all genres and styles, from thrillers to musicals, documentaries to dystopian drama.

Di Giacomo, whose ...

Whether you are religious or not you’ll have heard of exorcism and the role it plays in the Catholic Church. While it has made its way into popular culture with the likes of The Exorcist it is still a practice that is used to “rid” people of demons. Deliver Us is a documentary that gives us a peek into the world of the exorcist and the people they help.

Focusing on the work of the Sicilian exorcist Father Cataldo who is one of the most sought after for his skills. People come from far and wide to get his help for the problems they face that they say doctors can’t fixed. Taking a warts and all look, we get to see what the world of the exorcist is really like.

The way director Federica Di Giacomo presents the documentary is to just throw us straight into it. We...

An excellent documentary about the challenges facing Catholic priests who specialise in driving out demons

Sicily, the present day. Veteran priest Father Cataldo is attempting to cast out a demon. Modern technology means that he no longer needs to be in the same room – his exorcism is conducted via mobile phone. But the demon is wearisome and particularly chatty. Father Cataldo involuntarily rolls his eyes as he tries to get a word in edgeways. It’s a scene that sums up the curious clash at the heart of this documentary about exorcisms and the Catholic church – baroque themes more suited to a horror flick rub shoulders with the sanitised efficiency of the modern world.

At an exorcism conference in Rome, priests chat over lunch in the canteen. One complains of being “bombarded by possessed people”. It’s almost funny, but director Federica Di Giacomo is careful that the genuine suffering...

Federica Di Giacomo’s documentary focuses on two Sicilian priests specialising in exorcism – but really it’s a sad study in group hysteria and personal dysfunction

The forces of unreason are on the march in Federica Di Giacomo’s disturbing documentary. It is about two priests in Sicily specialising in exorcism, as part of a new upswing in exorcism in Catholic churches across Europe and the Us. They arrive to conduct special masses and one-to-one sessions. One even performs exorcisms over the phone.

There is a subsidiary pleasure to be had in guessing which people featured here have seen William Friedkin’s film The Exorcist. (I very much suspect that one woman, who goes into the creepy-throaty Satan voice, falls into this category.) But basically it’s a melancholy study of people who clearly suffer from depression, drug abuse, anxiety and compulsive disorders, herded into a situation that creates group...

Exorcisms have been ripe fodder for horror films for decades, so much so that we might not think they actually happen (or at least anymore, in the days of scientific discovery and understanding of certain medical conditions). But on the contrary, not only do they still occur, they are on the rise, so much so that the Catholic Church is churning out priests trained to perform them. Federica di Giacomo's documentary Deliver Us goes inside one particular church in Palermo, Siciliy, to look at the those seeking out exorcisms, and the priests who perform them.  Your perspective on what you see in the film will undoubtably be influenced by whatever is your belief (or non-belief) system. Are these people (varying in gender, age, socioeconomic class) merely...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

It would appear that Satan is pulling double shifts over in Italy as the demand for exorcisms is on the rise. Bad news for him is that he has crappy taste in choosing a location to do it in as he chose to set up shop in the heart of Catholicism. There you have a slew of Catholic priests looking to chew bubble gum and vanquish Satan. And they're all out of Gum. Welcome to the world of exorcism in Federica Di Giacomo's documentary Libera Nos (Deliver Us). Claims of Satanic possession are increasing around the world. In meeting the demands of those desperately seeking help, the Catholic Church responds with the solution they’ve employed for centuries: exorcisms. A new wave of exorcist priests...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

The topic of exorcism has long fascinated Hollywood. From early horror movies and TV shows, the genre has received a new wave of contemporary fans with new shows including Outcast and The Exorcist revival. But the often gory, horror genre is nothing like the real-life practice of exorcism that has been around for centuries in the Catholic Church.

Federica Di Giacomo explores real-life exorcisms in her documentary Libera Nos in a small Sicilian town where every day Franciscan Father Cataldo Migliazzo has dozens of people claiming demonic possession, lining up to be healed inside the local church. The film explores...

Over the weekend, the 73rd annual Venice Film Festival handed out their awards for 2016, with a few of the expected major Oscar hopefuls showing up among their winners. They included a few of the contenders being heavily mentioned not only at Venice, but over at the Telluride Film Festival as well. The awards did cite some smaller films and performances, but this was closer to a star studded slate of honorees than not, which is something a bit new. Venice is looking to be a launching pad for a handful of flicks as we move forward in the fall festival season, and that’s certainly exciting. The fest may now be in the books, with the Toronto International Film Festival (or Tiff) the center of attention, but my hat is off to Venice for some of these picks. They seem to have outdone themselves. The whole list of award winners...

With the jury winners announced this past weekend (see at the bottom), the 73rd Venice International Film Festival has now come to an end. As always, it was a strong kick-off to the fall festivals, with some premieres of dramas that we’ll see over the next few months, as well as a great many that won’t arrive until next year (or perhaps later, pending distribution). We’ve wrapped up the festival by selecting our 9 favorite films, followed by our complete coverage. Check out everything below and let us know what you’re most looking forward to.

Austerlitz (Sergei Loznitsa)

Having experimented with feature-length fiction films, shorts, and archival-footage documentaries in the course of his career, Sergei Loznitsa’s output since his 2014 Ukrainian crisis documentary Maidan has both garnered him greater acclaim than before and zeroed in on cinema as a collectively generated form. – Tommaso T. (full review)

Hacksaw Ridge...

The 73rd Venice International Film Festival comes to a close this evening with their annual awards ceremony. The festival ran from August 31st through September 10th, with Sam Mendes as the President of the Jury for the main competition. You can watch the winners accept their awards live with the Venice Film Festival live stream. Follow the link to watch the ceremony and check in on the winners list below.

Read More: Venice Film Festival Reveals First Slate of 2016 Titles, Including ‘Voyage of Time,’ ‘The Bad Batch,’ ‘Jackie’ and ‘Nocturnal Animals’

This year, Viff screened many high-profile films, including such anticipated fall features like Damien Chazelle’s musical “La La Land,” Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi film “Arrival,” and Terrence Malick’s “Voyage of Time.” They also premiered more more mainstream fare outside of competition, like Mel Gibson’s latest “Hacksaw Ridge” and Antoine Fuqua’s “The Magnificent Seven.”

Read More:...

The oldest film festival in the world is turning 73 this year, and IndieWire is partnering with Festival Scope to give 10 lucky readers the chance to win an online festival pass to the Venice Film Festival’s Sala Web program. Can’t make it all the way to Venice this year? Fortunately, you won’t have to.

Read More: 2016 Venice Film Festival: The Lineup So Far

This year’s Sala Web lineup includes titles from the festival’s Orizzonti section and from Biennale College, in addition to a select group of titles picked from various other sidebars. Highlights include “The Orchard Seller,” by 2015 Golden Lion winner Lorenzo Vigas, and new features from international directors like Wang Bing, Parviz Shahbazi, Tim Sutton and Jessica Woodworth. Sala Web screenings will be hosted on a secure site operated by Festival Scope on behalf of the Venice Film Festival. Digital tickets for Sala Web screenings...

The full list of this year's Venice Film Festival has been announced with high-profile titles from Mel Gibson, Tom Ford, Terrence Malick, Derek Cianfrance, Pablo Larrain, Denis Villenueve, Antoine Fuqua, Damian Chazelle, Emir Kusturica, Antoine Fuqua, Ana Lily Amirpour, Francois Ozon, and Wim Wenders all making the grade.

Amongst the films in competition are Chazelle's Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone-led musical "La La Land," Ford's second film "Nocturnal Animals," the high-profile book adaptation "The Light Between Oceans," the mysterious sci-fi title "Arrival," and Malick's doco "Voyage of Time". Screening outside of competition are Gibson's "Hacksaw Ridge," Fuqua's "The Magnificent Seven," and the first two episodes of Paolo Sorrentino's "The Young Pope". Here's the full line-up:

In Competition

"The Bad Batch," Ana Lily Amirpour (U.S.)

"Une Vie," Stephan Brizé (France, Belgium)

"La La Land," Damien Chazelle (U.S.)

"The Light Between Oceans," Derek Cianfrance (U.S., Australia, New Zealand)

"El ciudadano ilustre,...

The selection for the 2016 Venice Film Festival has been announced, with new films by Terrence Malick, Pablo Larraín, Lav Diaz, Wang Bing, Amat Escalante, Tom Ford, and more.COMPETITIONVoyage of TimeThe Bad Batch (Ana Lily Amirpour)Une vie i (Stéphane Brizé)La La Land (Damien Chazelle)The Light Between Oceans (Derek Cianfrance)El ciudadano ilustre (Mariano Cohn, Gastón Duprat)Spira Mirabilis (Massimo D'Anolfi, Martina Parenti)The Woman Who Left (Lav Diaz)La región salvaje (Amat Escalante)Nocturnal Animals (Tom Ford)Piuma (Roan Johnson)Paradise (Andrei Konchalovsky)Brimstone (Martin Koolhoven)Jackie (Pablo Larraín)Voyage of Time (Terrence Malick)El Cristo Ciego (Christopher Murray)Frantz (François Ozon)Questi Giorni (Giuseppe Piccioni)Arrival (Denis Villeneuve)Les beaux jours D'Aranjuez (Wim Wenders)Out Of COMPETITIONSafariOur War (Bruno Chiaravolloti, Claudio Jampaglia, Benedetta Argentieri)I Called Him Morgan (Kasper Collin)One More Time with Feeling (Andrew Dominik)The Bleeder (Philippe Falardeau)The Magnificent Seven (Antoine Fuqua...

Is there a best picture winner in the bunch? The Venice Film Festival has unveiled its 2016 lineup, including both in competition and out of competition offerings, and with the festival’s strong track record of debuting recent best picture winners — from “Spotlight” to “Birdman” — there might be another big winner among the slate’s ranks.

As had been previously announced, the festival will open with Damien Chazelle’s “La La Land,” which will later hit Toronto (and, presumably, also Telluride). The festival will close with Antoine Fuqua’s “The Magnificent Seven,” which kicks off its own festival run days earlier, when it will open Tiff.

Read More: Tiff Reveals First Slate of 2016 Titles, Including ‘Magnificent Seven,’ ‘American Honey,’ ‘La La Land’ and ‘Birth of A Nation’

Other picks that will also do the Venice-tiff two-step include Tom Ford’s “Nocturnal Animals,” Denis Villeneuve’s “Arrival,” Francois Ozon’s “Frantz,” Nick Hamm...