29/07/2010

According to Venice Film Festival (September 1-11) director Marco Mueller, the new and improved Horizons sidebar will “stimulate attentive, vigil and passionate watching and offer in exchange a visual step forward”.

The previously announced opening and closing films – respectively, Sleeping Beauty by France’s Catherine Breillat and Korean director Hong Sang-soo’s Oki’s Movie – booked works that span genres (documentary and fiction), formats (film and digital) and running times (features as well as medium-length and short films, in Corto Cortissimo).

In this way, adds Mueller, the section “acknowledges the fluidity of contemporary cinema”. A fluidity that characterizes many of Horizon’s European titles.

Italy is present with Pasquale Scimeca’s Malavoglia, a contemporary adaptation of Giovanni Verga’s masterpiece; and Per questi stretti morire - Cartografia di una passione by Giuseppe M. Gaudino and Isabella Sandri, a mix of documentary and poetic reconstruction (that includes stop-motion animation) of the ghost of Father Alberto Maria De Agostini,.

Spanish director José Luis Guerin’s latest documentary, Guest, takes a trip around the world, while Gianfranco Rosi, whose Below Sea Level [+see also:
film review
film profile] won Horizons two years ago, goes to further extremes (if that’s possible) in his nomadic cinema, in El Sicario, Room 164, the bloody biography of a Mexican drug runner.

Further documentaries include are two features from the UK – The Nine Muses by John Akomfrah, a look at migrant workers in Great Britain; and Robinson in Ruins by Patrick Keiller, a shrewd analysis of the 2008 financial crisis, narrated by Vanessa Redgrave and Austria/Dutch co-production The Forgotten Space.

Narrative works include Catalan director Lluís Galter’s Bresson-esque feature debut Caracremada; the absurdist comedy A Espada e a Rosa by Portugal’s João Nicolau; and French title Dharma Guns by F. J. Ossang.

Also of note, especially among the shorts and medium-length films, are hybrid works, by directors who, explains Venice Biennale president Paolo Baratta, “come from a diverse range of expressive backgrounds. In this way, Horizons is a ‘laboratory’ of various artistic languages, within the greater ‘laboratory’ of the Biennale itself”.

Opening film Sleeping Beauty - Catherine Breillat France

Closing Film Oki's Movie - Hong Sang-soo
South Korea

The Nine Muses (documentary) - John Akomfrah
UK, Ghana

The Forgotten Space - Noel Burch and Allan Sekula
Netherlands, Austria

Nainsukh - Amit Dutta
Switzerland, India

Caracremada - Lluís Galter
Spain

Per questi stretti morire (ovvero cartografia di una passione) - Giuseppe Gaudino and Isabella Sandri
Italy

Guest (documentary) - José Luis Guerin
Spain

Jean Gentil - Laura Amelia Guzman and Israel Cardenas
Dominican Republic, Mexico, Germany

Reconstructing Faith (documentary) - Huang Wenhai
China

Robinson in Ruins (documentary) - Patrick Keiller
UK

Zelal (documentary) - Marianne Khoury and Mustapha Hasnaoui Egypt, France

Anti Gas Skin - Kim Gok and Kim Sun
South Korea

News from Nowhere - Paul Morrisey
USA

A Espada e a Rosa - João Nicolau
Portugal, France

Dharma Guns - F. J. Ossang
France, Portugal

Verano de Goliat - Nicolás Pereda
Mexico, Canada

El Sicario Room 164 - Gianfranco Rosi
France, Italy

When We Were Communists (documentary) - Maher Abi Samra
Lebanon, France, UAE.

Malavoglia - Pasquale Scimeca
Italy

Cold Fish - Sion Sono
Japan

Horizons medium-length and short films

House - Doug Aitken
USA

Weak Rot Front - Victor Alimpiev
Russia

Il Capo (documentary) - Yuri Ancarani

Italy

En el Futuro - Mauro Andrizzi Argentina

Shadow Cuts - Martin Arnold
Austria

El Pozo - Guillermo Arriaga
Mexico

Woman I - Nuntanat Duangtisarn
Thailand

Non si può nulla contro il vento - Flatform
Italy

The Agent - Vincent Gallo
USA

Crust - Huang Wenhai
China

Mouse Palace - Harald Hund and Paul Horn
Austria

Four Seasons - Chaisiri Jiwarangsan
Thailand

Red Earth - Clara Law
China, Hong Kong, Australia

Atom - Markus Loeffler and Andrée Korpys
Germania

The Life and Death of Henry Darger - Bertrand Mandico
France, Iceland

Magic for Beginners - Jesse McLean
USA

Inspiration - Galina Myznikova and Sergey Provorov
Russia

Painéis de São Vicente de Fora, Visão Poética - Manoel de Oliveira
Portugal

The External World (animation) - David Oreilly
Germany

On Rubiks' Road (documentary) - Laila Pakalnina
Latvia

Man in a Room - Rafael Palacio Illingworth
USA, Mexico, Switzerland

Diane Wellington - Arnaud des Pallières
France

Les Barbares - Jean Gabriel Périot
France

The Future will not be Capitalist (documentary) - Sasha Pirker Austria

O mundo é belo - Luiz Pretti
Brazil

Stardust - Nicolas Provost
Belgium

Cold Clay, Emptiness... - SJ Ramir
New Zealand

The Futurist - Emily Richardson
UK

Out - Roee Rosen
Israel

John's Gone - Josh Safdie e Benny Safdie
USA

Indefatigable (documentary) - Ruth Jarman e Joe Gerhardt
Ecuador, UK

21 Grams (animation) - Xun Sun
China

How to pick Berries (documentary) - Elina Talversaari
Finland

La linea generale - Oleg Tcherny
France

Coming Attractions - Peter Tscherkassy
Austria

The Death of an Insect - Hannes Vartianen e Pekka Veikkolainen
Finland

Mechanic of Spring (animation) - Atsushi Wada
Japan

Fading (documentary) - Olivier Zabat
France

720 Degrees - Ishtiaque Zico

Bangladesh

Casus Belli - Georgios Zois
Greece

Horizons Out of Competition k.364 a journey by train (documentary) - Douglas Gordon
UK, France

A Loft - Ken Jacobs
USA

The Leopard - Isaac Julien
UK

Un anno dopo Progetto Memory Hunters (documentary) - Carlo Liberatore, Matteo Di Bernardino, Antonio Iacobone, Stefano Ianni, Marco Castellani et. al.
Italy

(Translated from Italian)