Venice Critics’ Week has unveiled the selection for its 39th edition running from August 28 to September 7.
The seven titles in Competition include U.S-French filmmaker Alexandra Simpson’s debut feature No Sleep Till, set against the background of a Florida coastal town in the lead-up to a hurricane.
The film is produced by Tyler Taormina under the banner of the Omnes Films collective which made a splash at Cannes this year with two films in Directors’ Fortnight: Tyler’s Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point and Eephus by Carson Lund.
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Also out of the U.S., Micheal Premo will unveil his timely documentary Homegrown, following three right-wing activists as they criss-cross the country in 2020, campaigning for Donald Trump.
Further contenders include UK-French director Jethro Massey’s debut film Paul & Paulette Take A Bath, about a American photographer and a French girl who bond in Paris around a dark game involving the reenactment of scenes of notorious crimes from bygone eras at the sites they occurred.
Massey also produces under the banner of his UK company Film Fabric.
The competition also features Iranian-Italian director Milad Tangshir’s Anywhere Anytime about a young illegal immigrant, whose joy at landing a job as a delivery boy is short-lived when his bike is stolen, sending him on a desperate odyssey across the city.
It is produced by top Italian indie producers Marta Donzelli and Gregorio Paonessa at Vivo Film, in co-production with Young Films.
Out of Asia, Vietnamese filmmaker Dương Diệu Linh competes with female-focused drama Don’t Cry Butterfly, about a woman who enlists a spell master to win back her husband after she discovers he has been cheating on her on live TV.
Further contenders include Austrian director Bernherd Wenger’s Peacock about a young man who offers his services as a fake stand-in partner but has trouble being his real self.
Egyptian director Muhammed Hamdy will also unveil Perfumed With Mint about two friends running from the ghosts of their past and fears over their future.
The sidebar will open with French director Aude Léa Rapin’s fantasy drama Planet B and close with Lawrence Valin’s Little Jaffna, set against the backdrop of the Tamil community in Paris.
The selection is overseen by Artistic Director Beatrice Fiorentino and with support from Enrico Azzano, Chiara Borroni, Ilaria Feole, and Federico Pedroni.
In a statement, the selection committee said the 39th edition would be unfolding in a difficult period of history “filled with uncertainty and unknowns, in which it has become difficult to find our compass and distinguish truth from falsehood, reality from fiction”.
“In such a scenario, one step away from the precipice, in a world overflowing with weapons and ravaged by wars, with environmental and social imperatives that require an immediate and radical change of pace if catastrophe is to be averted, what answers can cinema offer? Not answers; doubts, if anything. Despite it all, we cannot avert our eyes from the images of the present; we still rely on them in our frantic search for paradigms – far from generating certainties, they question us, challenge us, amidst calls for greater awareness of our responsibilities, in a world where everything is up for dispute.”
The seven films in Competition are in the running for the €10,000 Grand Prize Settimana Internazionale della Critica, the €3,000 Film Club Audience Award and the €5,000 Luciano Sovena Award for the best independent producer.
The full-line-up
In competition
Anywhere Anytime
Dir. Milad Tangshir
Italy
Don’t Cry, Butterfly
Dir, Dương Diệu Linh
Vietnam, Singapore, Philippines, Indonesia
Homegrown
Dir. Michael Premo
United States
No Sleep Till
Dir. Alexandra Simpson
United States, Switzerland
Paul & Paulette Take A Bath
Dir. Jethro Massey
United Kingdom
Peacock
Dir. Bernhard Wenger
Austria, Germany
Perfumed With Mint
Dir. Muhammed Hamdy
Egypt, France, Tunisia
Out of Competition
Opening film
Planet B
Dir. Aude Léa Rapin
France, Belgium
Closing Film
Little Jaffna
Dir. Lawrence Valin
France