Safdie Bros., Juno Mak, John Krokidas, Bruce LaBruce & Yuval Adler Make the 2013 Venice Days Cut

Moments before the Toronto Int. Film Festival makes their first wave announcement of 70 plus titles, Venice Days (which several in the industry equate to Venice’s answer to Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight) have announced their line-up of twelve competing films with a slew of special screenings. Among the familiar items we find a pair from Sundance in John Krokidas’ Kill Your Darlings and Cherien Dabis’ May In The Summer seemingly receiving their international premieres. The North American strong section also includes the world preems in Bruce LaBruce’s Montreal-shot (see pic above) Gerontophilia, Sean Gullette’s (expanded short into feature length film) Traitors, and the India-Canadian co-production of Richie Mehta’s Siddharth (the tale of a chain-wallah who travels across India in search of his missing son) which on papers comes across as a more potent version of fantasy film Slumdog Millionaire. Also from the U.S. and part of the growing trend of festival-pairing, the Tribeca screened Lenny Cooke will be showcased and one of our faves in Middle of Nowhere‘s Ava DuVernay will premiere her short, The Door.

Among the international titles, our Israeli film correspondent Eithan Weitz stamps Yuval Adler’s Bethlehem as a “must see” political thriller with an extremely difficult to watch climatic final sequence, and we’re hoping that Juno Mak’s Rigor Mortis (the Hong Kong vampire pic with gallons of blood) also breaks into the TIFF line-up. The official Venice Film Fest lineup will be announced in a couple of days – here is the entire line-up for the 2013 edition of Venice Days.

Venice Days
Alienation – Milko Lazarov (Bulgaria)
La Belle Vie – Jean Denizot (France)
Bethlehem – Yuval Adler (Israel)
Gerontophilia – Bruce LaBruce (Canada)
Traitors – Sean Gullette (Morocco/U.S.)
Kill Your Darlings – John Krokidas (U.S.)
Nobody’s Home – Deniz Akcay (Turkey)
May In The Summer – Cherien Dabis (U.S., Qatar, Jordan)
La Mia Classe – Daniele Gaglianone (Italy)
La Reconstruccion – Juan Taratuto (Argentina)
Rigor Mortis – Juno Mak (Hong Kong)
Siddharth – Richie Mehta (India, Canada)

Women’s Tales Project (Shorts) in collaboration with Miu Miu
The Door – Ava DuVernay (Italy, U.S.)
Le Donne Della Vucciria – Hiam Abbas (Italy, France)

SPECIAL EVENTS
Julia – J. Jackie Baier (Germany, Lithuania)
Venezia Salva – Serena Nono (Italy)

In Collaboration With Tribeca Film Festival
Lenny Cooke – Benny Safdie, Joshua Safdie (U.S.)

Pre-opener Special Screening
L’arbitro – Paolo Zucca (Italy, Argentina)

Closer – Special Screening
Tres Bodas De Mas – Javier Ruiz Caldera (Spain)