2020 Venice Film Festival: Michel Franco, Mona Fastvold, Jasmila Zbanic & Konchalovsky in Comp

Mona Fastvold, Emma Dante and Chloé Zhao were tipped for the comp months ago, but today heavyweights such as Jasmila Zbanic, Malgorzata Szumowska (Never Gonna Snow Again) and Nicole Garcia (Lovers – formerly titled Lisa Redler) have been confirmed. Finally the 2020 Venice Film Festival edition will not have been as eurocentric as we were anticipating and with no major film studio presence, a couple of French co-productions and next to no U.S projects, this year’s official competition is almost a 180 degree script change from previous editions with a major female filmmaker presence in what is a truly world cinema line-up. Michel Franco‘s Nuevo Orden (#9) and Andrei Konchalovsky‘s Dear Comrades (#22) were high up in our curated most anticipated list, but the major coup for Alberto Barbera was his ability to land world preem status for some heavily anticipated directorial debuts. The Horizons sidebar can count on section opener Christos Nikou‘ Apples (#115), Jia Zhang-ke protege Wang Jing‘s The Best Is Yet To Come (#117) and Giovanni Aloi‘s La Troisième Guerre (#140) to add some new discovery magic dust on the Lido.

VENEZIA 77 – COMPETITION
In Between Dying, dir: Hilal Baydarov
Le Sorelle Macaluso, dir: Emma Dante
The World To Come, dir: Mona Fastvold
Nuevo Orden, dir: Michel Franco
Lovers, dir: Nicole Garcia
Laila in Haifa, dir: Amos Gitai
Dear Comrades, dir: Andrei Konchalovsky
Wife Of A Spy, dir: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Sun Children, dir: Majid Majidi
Pieces Of A Woman, dir: Kornel Mundruczo
Miss Marx, dir: Susanna Nicchiarelli
Padrenostro, dir: Claudio Noce
Notturno, dir: Gianfranco Rosi
Never Gonna Snow Again, dirs: Malgorzata Szumowska, Michal Englert
The Disciple, dir: Chaitanya Tamhane
And Tomorrow The Entire World, dir: Julia Von Heinz
Quo Vadis, Aida?, dir: Jasmila Zbanic
Nomadland, dir: Chloé Zhao

HORIZONS
*Apples, dir: Christos Nikou (Opening film)
*La Troisième Guerre, dir: Giovanni Aloi
Milestone, dir: Ivan Ayr
The Wasteland, dir: Ahmad Bahrami
The Man Who Sold His Skin, dir: Kaouther Ben Hania
*I Predatori, dir: Pietro Castellitto
Mainstream, dir: Gia Coppola
Genus Pan, dir: Lav Diaz
*Zanka Contact, dir: Ismael El Iraki
Guerra E Pace, dirs: Martina Parenti, Massimo D’Anolfi
La Nuit Des Rois, dir: Philippe Lacôte
*The Furnace, dir: Roderick Mackay
Careless Crime, dir: Shahram Mokri
Gaza Mon Amour, dirs: Tarzan Nasser, Arab Nasser
Selva Tragica, dir: Yulene Olaizola
Nowhere Special, dir: Uberto Pasolini
*Listen, dir: Ana Rocha de Sousa
*The Best Is Yet To Come, dir: Wang Jing
Yellow Cat, dir: Adilkhan Yerzhanov
(*Denotes debut features eligible for the Lion of the Future “Luigi De Laurentiis” Award)

HORIZONS SHORT FILMS – COMPETITION
The Night Train, dir: Jerry Carlsson
The Shift, dir: Laura Carreira
Workshop, dir: Judah Finnigan
Sogni Al Campo, dir: Magda Guidi
What Probably Would Have Happened, If I Hadn’t Stayed At Home, dir: Willy Hans
The Game, dir: Roman Hodel
Places, dir: Vytautas Katkus
Anita, dir: Sushma Khadepaun
A Fleur De Peau, dir: Meriem Mesraoua
Entre Tu Y Milagros, dir: Marina Saffon
Being My Mon, dir: Jasmine Trinca
Live In Cloud Cuckoo Land, dir: Nghia Vu Minh

HORIZONS SHORT FILMS – OUT OF COMPETITION
Si, dir: Luca Ferri
The Return Of Tragedy, dir: Bertrand Mandico

OUT OF COMPETITION – SPECIAL SCREENINGS
30 Monedas, Episode 1, dir: Alex de la Iglesia
Princesse Europe, dir: Camille Lotteau
Omelia Contadina, dirs: Alice Rohrwacher, JR

OUT OF COMPETITION – FICTION
Lacci, dir: Daniele Lucheti (Opening film)
Lasciami Andare, dir: Stefano Mordini (Closing film)
Mandibules, dir: Quentin Dupieux
Love After Love, dir: Ann Hui
Assandira, dir: Salvatore Mereu
The Duke, dir: Roger Michell
Night In Paradise, dir: Park Hoon-jung
Mosquito State, dir: Filip Jan Rymsza

OUT OF COMPETITION – NON-FICTION
Sportin’ Life, dir: Abel Ferrara
Crazy, Not Insane, dir: Alex Gibney
Greta; dir: Nathan Grossman
Salvatore, Shoemaker Of Dreams, dir: Luca Guadagnino
Final Account, dir: Luke Holland
La Verita Su La Dolce Vita, dir: Giuseppe Pedersoli
Molecole, dir: Andrea Segre
Narciso Em Ferias, dirs: Renato Terra, Ricardo Calil
Paulo Conte, Via Con Me, dir: Giorgio Verdelli
Hopper/Welles: dir: Orson Welles
City Hall, dir: Frederick Wiseman

BIENNALE COLLEGE – CINEMA
El Arte De Volver, dir: Pedro Collantes
Fucking With Nobody, dir: Hannaleena Hauru

BIENNALE COLLEGE CINEMA – VIRTUAL REALITY
Vajont, dir: Iolanda Di Bonaventura

VENICE CLASSICS
Chronicle Of A Love (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1950)
Claudine (John Berry, 1974)
The Young Girl (Souleymane Cissé, 1975)
Late Season (Zoltán Fábri, 1966)
Seduced And Abandoned (Pietro Germi, 1964)
The Last Supper (Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, 1976)
Vengeance Is Mine (Shôhei Imamura, 1979)
The Rickshaw Man (Hiroshi Inagaki, 1943)
You Only Live Once (Fritz Lang, 1937)
Serpico (Sidney Lumet, 1973)
Le Cercle Rouge (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1970)
Unfinished Piece For Mechanical Piano (Nikita Mikhalkov, 1977)
Goodfellas (Martin Scorsese, 1990)