2024 Venice: Jan-Willem Van Ewijk, Isabella Torre & Jiang Xiaoxuan in Giornate Degli Autori Line-Up

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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. This digs into the spicy lifestyle choice of monogamy vs. polyamory. The closing film slot belongs to Isabella Torre‘s feature debut Basilea. The filmmaker cut her teeth with shorts Nymphs (2018) and Full Moon (2020) – both were invited the the Lido. Her feature is a fantasy drama is set in southern Italy and follows an archaeologist team whose latest dig accidentally unleashes mythical creatures. Thesp Elliott Crosset from Hlynur Pálmason’s Godland toplines. Let’s dig into the ten competition items:

In the suspenseful, psychoanalytical psycho-thriller genre, Jan-Willem Van Ewijk‘s third feature film Alpha. follows a troubled father-and-son relationship in the Swiss Alps. The Dutch filmmaker’s last film was the TIFF preemed Atlantic (2014). The filmmaker also has currently has Sleep. in post-production. From Georgia, The House of Others (2016) filmmaker Rusudan Glurijdze tackles romance, intimacy and rupture in The Antique which is set in St. Petersburg in 2006, a time when thousands of Georgians were illegally deported to Russia. A directorial debut from Iran, Shahab Fotouhi‘s Boomerang explores teenage love and a woman leaving her husband and is set in Tehran. The film was edited by Alexandre Koberidze – of What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? fame. Another directorial debut, from Brazil’s Marianna Brennand, Manas is set in the Amazon swamps and looks at a young teenager who rebels against a history of domestic violence and trauma handed down from generation to generation. Known for working in different strands, shapes, forms and runtimes, the Quay Brothers offering stop-motion animation and live action with Sanatorium Under The Sign Of The Hour Glass. Working on a flurry of projects as a writer most recently Meteorites (2018), Ibrahim (2020) and 2022’s Amore mio and Sons of Ramses, Camille Lugan gets behind the camera for Selon Joy — it features Asia Argento and Raphaël Thiéry in a clash between good and evil, and between innocence and crime. Dominican artist/filmmaker Johanné Gómez Terrero‘s Sugar Island situates itself in the POV of a thirteen year-old who finds herself pregnant in the historic imprint of colonial roots of the sugar industry. A third feature film from Kohei Igarashi, Super Happy Forever sees Sano return to Izu (accompanied by his friend Miyata), a seaside resort in Japan where five years before he fell in love with his wife Nagi. Rome-based filmmaker Ciro De Caro returns to the section that premiered his 2021 film Giulia, this time out with Taxi Monamour we follow two women (Rosa Palasciano and Yeva Sai) retracing their own paths. And finally, NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts alumni Jiang Xiaoxuan‘s feature debut To Kill a Mongolian Horse looks at Saina’s dual life as a herdsman and horseback performer unravels as he grapples with the dissolution of the traditional way of life. Here are the selections:

Competition
Alpha. – Jan-Willem Van Ewijk
The Antique – Rusudan Glurijdze
Boomerang – Shahab Fotouhi
Manas – Marianna Brennand
Sanatorium Under The Sign Of The Hour Glass – Quay Brothers
Selon Joy – Camille Lugan
Sugar Island – Johanné Gómez Terrero
Super Happy Forever – Kohei Igarashi
Taxi Monamour – Ciro De Caro
To Kill a Mongolian Horse – Jiang Xiaoxuan

Special Events (Out of Competition)
Basileia – Isabella Torre (Closing Film)
The Open Couple – Federica Di Giacomo (Pre-Opener Film)
Peaches Goes Bananas – Marie Losier
Possibility of Paradise – Mladen Kovačević
Soudan, souviens-toi – Hind Meddeb
Soul of the Desert – Monica Taboada Tapia

Kora (Short) – Cláudia Varejão

Miu Miu Women’s Tales
#27 I Am the Beauty of Your Beauty, I Am the fear of Your Fear – Chui Mui Tan
#28 The Miu Miu Affaire – Laura Citarella

Venetian Nights
A Man Fell – Giovanni C Lorusso
Bosco grande – Giuseppe Schillaci
Desert Suite – Fabrizio Ferraro
The Eye of the Hen – Antonietta De Lillo
Quasi a casa – Carolina Pavone
High Stakes – A Night in the Ward – Giovanni Dota
Sempre – Luciana Fina
Hold On Miss! Isabella Ducrot Unlimited – Monica Stambrini
Vakhim – Francesca Pirani

Eric Lavallée
Eric Lavalléehttps://www.ericlavallee.com
Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist, and critic at IONCINEMA.com, established in 2000. A regular at Sundance, Cannes, and Venice, Eric holds a BFA in film studies from the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013, he served on the narrative competition jury at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson’s "This Teacher" (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). He is a Golden Globes Voter, member of the ICS (International Cinephile Society) and AQCC (Association québécoise des critiques de cinéma).

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