So here we are. The programming teams headed by Artistic Directors Gaia Furrer (Giornate degli Autori), Beatrice Fiorentino (Settimana Internazionale della Critica) and Alberto Barbera (Cinema Department of La Biennale di Venezia) have viewed thousands of hours of cinema and are getting ready to drop their line-ups. This Friday we find out the selections for the Giornate degli Autori, next Monday the Venice International Critics’ Week unveils their line-up and on the second Xmas morning of the year (Tuesday) we find out which films are competing for the Golden Lion. As usual, we have compiled a list of predictions that cover all sections, based on a combination of insider information, validation from other sources, and educated guesses here they are. 60 amuse-bouche feature films that are solid contenders for the Lido.
A Queen at Sea
Dir. Lance Hammer
Prod: Tristan Goligher
Curiously absent from any film fest prognostication lists, we begin our Venice Film Festival predictions with what appears to be a simple story about a woman (Juliette Binoche) who is concerned for her aging mother, so she moves back to London with her teenage daughter (Florence Hunt). Known for his brilliant 2008 break-out debut in the Sundance and Berlinale preemed Ballast, Lance Hammer‘s long-awaited A Queen at Sea has to be among the most anticipated sophomore feature of the 2024 campaign.
Prediction: In Competition.
Ainda Estou Aqui
Dir. Walter Salles
Prod: Maria Carlota Fernandes Bruno, Walter Salles, Rodrigo Teixeira
Filmed at the beginning of 2023, we thought Ainda Estou Aqui would definitely be shoring up on the Croisette (where Walter Salles has premiered the majority of his films) but some believe this was locked up earlier by the folks on the Lido. Based on Marcelo Rubens Paiva’s memoir, this is about his mother Eunice Paiva (played by Mariana Lima and Fernanda Montenegro), a housewife forced to reinvent herself as an activist when her husband fell victim to the military regime that took control of Brazil in 1964. Her husband became among many who were tortured and disappeared with no due process. Salles was in Venice with 2001’s Behind the Sun.
Prediction: In Competition.
Allah is not Obliged
Dir. Zaven Najjar
Prod: TBD.
Paris-based animation director and illustrator Zaven Najjar has slowly been moving towards this move into feature filmmaking adapting Ahmadou Kourouma’s novel. Recently shown as a work in progress at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival and Market, Allah is not Obliged is an animated film about Birahima, a ten-year-old Guinean orphan, recounts with the help of four dictionaries and a lot of irony how he was thrown into tribal war when he tried to join his aunt in Liberia: Yacouba, a grigriman and witch doctor villain who accompanies him, convinces him to become a child soldier. In the midst of chaos, Birahima grows up too quickly and learns to be wary of the stories she is told.
Prediction: Horizons.
Baby Invasion
Dir. Harmony Korine
Prod: EDGLRD
Proving to still be the enfant terrible after he agent oranged the Lido with last year’s ear-drum popping Aggro Dr1ft, as of late, Harmony Korine appears to be in a creative overdrive with The Trap being prepped for a 2025 launch, and for what should be a special dish this year with Baby Invasion — a film about home invaders shot from a first-person shooter perspective.
Prediction: Out of Competition
Bonjour Tristesse
Dir. Durga Chew-Bose
Prod: Benito Mueller, Wolfgang Mueller, Katie Bird Nolan, Christina Piovesan, Noah Segal, Julie Viez
Author slash filmmaker Durga Chew-Bose moved into production last summer on her feature debut. A France – United Kingdom – Canada – United States co-production, Bonjour Tristesse was set in Cassis, France, this follows Cécile (Lily McInerny) a young woman spending the summer in a villa in the south of France with her widowed father Raymond (Claes Bang) and his latest love interest, Elsa (Nailia Harzoune). Theirs is a lived-in compatibility a world of ease and languor. Chloë Sevigny is also among the players here. This is an adaptation of the 1954 novel of the same name by Françoise Sagan.
Prediction: Venice International Critics’ Week.
Campo di battaglia
Dir. Gianni Amelio
Prod: TBD.
The Stolen Children (1992) filmmaker has shown no signs of slowing down with a film project every two years or so and has been among different editions with the likes of Lamerica (1994), La Tenerezza (2017), Hammamet (2020) and 2022’s Il Signore delle Formiche (read review). Featuring thesp Alessandro Borghi, Gianni Amelio‘s Campo di battaglia sets back the clock to WWI, Dr. Stefano Zorzi works at a clinic, treating soldiers’ wounds and cases of self-injury to avoid combat.
Prediction: Out of Competition.
Caravan
Dir. Zuzana Kirchnerová
Prod: Dagmar Sedláčková
A directorial debut (selected for L’Atelier de la Cinéfondation in 2021) that has been a long time in the making, Zuzana Kirchnerová first made her presence known at the Cannes Film Festival back in 2008. Caravan tells the tale of Ester — a single mother of a mentally disabled son David. She only has one small dream: to spend two weeks in Italy at her old-time friend’s house without her son. At the last moment, the plans change and she has no other option than to take David with her.
Prediction: Venice International Critics’ Week.
Chocobar
Dir. Lucrecia Martel
Prod: Benjamin Domenech.
Javier Chocobar was shot dead fighting the removal of his indigenous community from their ancestral land in Argentina. His death appeared in a video on YouTube. Lucrecia Martel has been working on Chocobar for a while now – surely the weighty subject matter and research accounts for a drop date that is less easier to predict. This is about the 500 years of “reason” that led to this shooting, both with a gun and a camera, and contextualizes it in the system of land tenure that emerged across Latin America. Zama was criminally placed in the Out of Competition section back in 2017, we’d like to see this hybrid docu in a better spotlight. Again, this could still be in the works.
Prediction: In Competition.
Cloud
Dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Prod: TBD.
The latest Kiyoshi Kurosawa horror thriller is set for a domestic Japan release in late September – so perhaps Cloud will also be timed for a showcase on the Lido? Yoshii (Masaki Suda), a young man who resells goods online, finds himself at the center of a series of mysterious events that put his life at risk. His 2020 film Wife of a Spy was selected for the competition section (the film won Silver Lion for Best Direction).
Prediction: Out of Competition.
Dao
Dir. Alain Gomis
Prod: Sylvie Pialat, Benoît Quainon, Christophe Barral, Toufik Ayadi.
Somewhat surprised that Dao didn’t drop in Cannes or Locarno, so perhaps the French-Senegalese filmmaker Alain Gomis is heading in the direction of Italy with a project he shot last summer with cinematographer Céline Bozon. This centres on Gloria (Béa Mendy), who is marrying her daughter in the Paris banlieue today. Not long ago, in Guinea-Bissau, she was attending the ceremony which consecrated her dead father as an ancestor. From one ceremony to the other, between past and present, life and death, reality and fiction, Gloria reconciles with her history, finds her place, and knows a moment of peace…
Prediction: Giornate degli Autori
Duse
Dir. Pietro Marcello
Prod: TBD.
After straying away to the Cannes Film Festival’s Quinzaine section with Scarlet (2022), even though filming took place around March and April of this year, word on the street is Pietro Marcello is racing to finish his latest oeuvre on time. Naturally Duse digs into the past — this is about Italian stage diva Eleonora Duse. Valeria Bruni Tedeschi stars as Duse and Noémie Merlant plays her daughter — it looks at the latter part of her life when she is 60 and her legendary career is now long over. Marcello’s 2019 film Martin Eden was selected for Venice.
Prediction: In Competition.
Dry Leaf
Dir. Alexandre Koberidze
Prod: Mariam Shatberashvili, Luise Hauschild
Known for Berlinale hit What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? (2021), we find ourselves in another mystery-filled world with Georgian filmmaker Alexandre Koberidze‘s third feature. Lisa, a photographer, who goes missing. The last information on Lisa is that she’s been photographing football stadiums in seven different villages all over Georgia. Her dad Irakli decides to search for her and travels to those places. Levani, Lisa’s best friend and an invisible person, sets off to help. As the scenery changes from one football stadium to another, people change and people’s stories change. Tensions build up on those simple and sometimes fun adventures as every football pit and every village travelled leaves less of a chance to find Lisa at all. Dry Leaf features David Koberidze, Irina Chelidze, Giorgi Bochorishvili, Vakhtang Fanchulidze and Otar Nijaradze star.
Prediction: Horizons.
Earthquake
Dir. Neo Sora
Prod. Aiko Masubuchi, Zakkubalan
It should be back-to-back years for Japanese-American artist/filmmaker Neo Sora – who premiered Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus last year and should be back on the mound with pure fiction. Selected for Sundance Labs, Earthquake is the story of two teenage friends in near-future Tokyo, who confront the end of their friendship as they navigate diverging paths into adulthood amid the threat of a catastrophic earthquake.
Prediction: Horizons.
Enterre Seus Mortos
Dir. Marco Dutra
Prod: Lourenço Sant’Anna, Rodrigo Teixeira, Alan Terpins.
He has been to Locarno (Good Manners), Cannes (Hard Labor), Berlinale (All the Dead Ones) so ideally for Marco Dutra this book-to-film adaptation would be to be featured among the Brazilian cinema titles on the Lido and completely the A-list fest superfecta. Enterre Seus Mortos is about two animal road corpse removers who end up finding a dead woman and decide to collect her body clandestinely. Filmed in Rio de Janerio, Selton Mello, Marjorie Estiano and Betty Faria are the trio of main players.
Prediction: Giornate degli Autori
Eterno Visionario
Dir. Michele Placido
Prod: Federica Luna Vincenti
At 78 years young, Michele Placido is still very much in the game. This past September he climbed onboard a project penned alongside Matteo Collura and Toni Trupia. Featuring Fabrizio Bentivoglio and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Eterno Visionario is set in 1934, as playwright Luigi Pirandello travels to Stockholm, where he is about to receive the Nobel Prize, he begins reliving the drama and magic of the loved ones who have populated his life and inspired his art. Pirandello reminisces about the madness of his wife, his stormy relationship with his children, his controversial stance towards fascism, and his love for Marta Abba, the young actress who became his muse. Placido has been to the Venice Film Festival multiple times with actress-winning perfs in Of Lost Love (1998) and The Big Dream (2009.)
Prediction: Out of Competition.
Fantasy
Dir. Kukla Kesherovic
Prod: Barbara Daljavec
A project that benefitted from the Cannes Cinéfondation Residence and was based on the short Clermont Film Festival winner, Kukla Kesherovic‘s feature debut Fantasy is set in an imaginary Slovenian industrial town. Sina, Mihrije and Jasna are best friends in their early twenties. Their boyish lifestyles often lead them into conflicts with neighborhood boys, who perceive them as a threat. A young transgender woman called Fantasy catches their attention and they are slowly mesmerized by her. From that point on their lives take new directions.
Prediction: Giornate degli Autori
Harvest
Dir. Athina Rachel Tsangari
Prod: Athina Rachel Tsangari, Rebecca O’Brien, Joslyn Barnes, Michael Weber, Viola Fügen, Marie-Elena Dyche
Bring out the pitchforks folks – after Caleb Landry Jones’ memorable performance in Dogman (Venice 2023), he might follow suit here in Athina Rachel Tsangari‘s fourth feature film. Based on Jim Crace’s book, Harvest is set in a medieval English village that comes under threat when a trio of outsiders arrive from beyond the woodland borders, triggering a series of events. Harry Melling and Rosy McEwen also star. Tsangari’s Attenberg was featured in Venice’s competition back in 2010.
Prediction: In Competition.
Horizonte
Dir. Cesar Augusto Acevedo
Prod: Paola Andrea Perez Nieto, Thierry Lenouvel.
Land and Shade (Caméra d’Or winner in Cannes in 2015) filmmaker Cesar Augusto Acevedo finally launched into his sophomore feature in November of 2022. Horizonte is a drama that revolves around two ghosts – a mother and her son – who are looking for the latter’s missing father. It’s a physical and spiritual journey through a war-ravaged world. After great sacrifices, they will repair the fragile bonds between them, and they might just find redemption too. Actress Paulina García toplines.
Prediction: Horizons.
In The Hand Of Dante
Dir. Julian Schnabel
Prod: Jon Kilik, Francesco Melzi d’Eril, Olmo Schnabel; Robert MacLean.
It’s almost a given that Julian Schnabel will prepare his film productions for an eventual Venice play date. Basquiat (1996), Before Night Falls (2000 – Grand Jury Prize winner and the Coppa Volpi for Best Actor for Javier Bardem), Miral (2010) and 2018’s At Eternity’s Gate. Last October he teamed with Oscar Isaac, Gal Gadot, Jason Momoa, Gerard Butler, John Malkovich, Al Pacino and Louis Cancelmi in Italy for the adaptation of Nick Tosches’s novel – In The Hand Of Dante tells two stories, set in parallel worlds, one set in Dante’s time, the other in the 21st century.
Prediction: In Competition.
Iris
Dir. Myrsini Aristidou
Prod: Nathalie Dennes, Léa Germain, Myrsini Aristidou, Monica Nicolaidou, Konstantina Stavrianou, Rena Vougioukalou.
Shot in Cyprus, and billed as a father-daughter drama, Myrsini Aristidou‘s feature debut Iris was invited to several labs including the Cannes Cinéfondation Residence. Aristidou’s 2017 short was selected for the Horizons section in Venice.
Prediction: Venice International Critics’ Week.
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