71st Venice Film Fest: Hong Sang-soo, Duane Hopkins & the Safdies Pack Horizons Section

The Venice Film Festival’s Horizons section (aka Orizzonti) is logically comparable to Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section. As well as including about a dozen shorts in the programme (Ramin Bahrani is among those listed with an eight minuter called Life You Up), this year’s  pack of seventeen unquestionably highlighted by the presence of Moshen Makhmalbaf’s The President, also includes the much anticipated sophomore film by Duane Hopkins’ youth portrait Bypass (see pic above – youth portrait), the Safdie Bros.’ Heaven Knows What – a docu-fiction hybrid starring Caleb Landry Jone and newcomer Arielle Holmes, the latest from frenzied pace working Hong Sangsoo (Hill Of Freedom) and a new item from actress Katherine Heigl (who knows this might actually be good) starring in Ami Canaan Mann’s Your Right Mind, about a modern day train hopper fighting to be a successful musician and a single mom battling to maintain custody of her daughter defy their circumstances by coming together in a relationship that may change each others lives forever.  Hopefully some of these trickle into TIFF for their North American preems.

HORIZONS
Theeb – Naji Abu Nowar (Jordan, U.A.E. Qatar, U.K.)
Line of Credit – Salome Alexi (Georgia, Germany, France)
Cymbeline – Michael Almereyda (U.S.)
Senza Nessuna Pieta – Michele Alhaique (Italy)
Near Death Experience – Benoit Delepine, Gustave Kervern (France)
Le Vita Oscena – Renato De Maria (Italy)
Realite – Quentin Dupieux (France, Belgium)
I Spy/I Spy – Veronika Franz, Severin Fiala (Austria)
Hill of Freedom – Hong Sangsoo (South Korea)
Bypass – Duane Hopkins (U.K.)
The President – Moshen Makhmalbaf (Georgia, France, U.K. Germany)
Your Right Mind – Ami Canaan Mann (U.S.)
Belluscone, una storia siciliana – Franco Maresco (Italy)
Nabat – Elchin Musaoglu (Azerbaijan)
Heaven Knows What – Josh Safdie, Ben Safdie (U.S., France)
These Are the Rules – Ognjen Svilicic, (Croatia, France, Serbia, Macedonia)
Court – Chaitanya Tamhane (India)