Venice Critics’ Week sets debut-heavy slate with no U.S. films
The Venice sidebar will showcase seven first features in competition, with Colombia and Italy strongly represented and all competition titles world premieres.
By Bianca Rossi · Entertainment Editor
3 min read
Venice Critics’ Week is going all-in on first-timers this year, selecting seven debut features for competition and leaving U.S. films off the slate.
The Venice Film Festival sidebar, which spotlights first works from around the world, includes Shalini Adnani’s debut feature “Our Share of Sand.” The London-based Chilean-Indian filmmaker’s family drama follows Maya, a 12-year-old girl who travels back to rural India in an attempt to reconnect with her estranged father.
Colombia has two competition entries in the section. Bibiana Rojas Gómez and Juan David Cárdenas co-directed “The End of Times,” a fiction-documentary hybrid that uses artificial intelligence and examines colonialism and capitalism in Colombian history. Sebastián Múnera’s “Meteorite” centers on plans to build an amusement park on the former estate of Pablo Escobar.
Italy is also a major presence, though not only in competition. Tommaso Usberti’s “Before the War,” listed in the lineup as “Prima Della Guerra,” is competing. The film follows Guido, a young man brought up in a racist environment in Northern Italy, who falls in love with Sonia, a Kosovar immigrant.
The Italian titles outside competition will bookend the sidebar. Marco Santi’s existential noir “Il Grande Giaffa,” also known as “Giaffa the Great,” will open Venice Critics’ Week. “Rider,” an Italian rap musical co-directed by Roan Johnson and producer Davide Pavanello, known as Dade, will close it. That film follows a young food delivery rider who brings a large sushi order to a luxury villa outside Milan and is invited to stay for the night.
The full competition slate
All seven competition films are world premieres, and all are directed by first-time feature filmmakers, according to the lineup announcement.
- “The End of Times,” Bibiana Rojas Gómez and Juan David Cárdenas, Colombia
- “The H@llow Man,” Kamel Laaridhi, Tunisia
- “London,” Victor Di Marco and Márcio Picoli, Brazil
- “Meteorite,” Sebastián Múnera, Colombia
- “Our Share of Sand,” Shalini Adnani, India, United Kingdom and Greece
- “Prima Della Guerra,” Tommaso Usberti, France and Italy
- “Zoom In, Zoom Out,” Dong Jie, China
Kamel Laaridhi’s Tunisian entry “The H@llow Man” is set in 2059, in a version of Tunisia where a biochip controls memory and represses emotion. Dong Jie’s Chinese drama “Zoom In, Zoom Out” follows a young video game designer searching for missing roommate Gao after finding a clue inside an online game. Brazilian drama “London,” by Victor Di Marco and Márcio Picoli, centers on a disabled young adult facing a dilemma.
Venice Critics’ Week general delegate Beatrice Fiorentino said in a statement that, even as the wider industry faces crises, the selected works show cinema continuing to assert its importance. She described the films as independent, daring and vibrant, and said they point to the need to keep rewriting the collective imagination.
The competition titles will also be eligible, alongside films from the Venice Film Festival’s official selection, for the Lion of the Future prize, which carries a $100,000 award.
The 83rd Venice Film Festival is scheduled to run from Sept. 2 to Sept. 12. The festival’s official selection lineup is set to be announced Thursday.
This story draws on original reporting from Variety.