21/07/2014 - The official programme of the independent section has been unveiled. Italy is represented by Dancing with Maria, the debut film by Gorizian Ivan Gergolet

Dancing with Maria by Gorizian Ivan Gergolet is the Italian film, co-produced with Argentina and Slovenia, among seven titles in competition at the 29th Venice International Film Critics' Week, the independent section dedicated exclusively to the first works of the Venice Film Festival (from 27 August to 6 September). Closing the ceremony out of competition will be another Italian movie, the Market, Diego Bianchi's first fiction. Bianchi is a blogger, journalist and TV anchorman also known by the name of Zoro.

Dancing with Maria tells the tale of an exceptional woman, Maria Fux, an energetic and passionate dancer over ninety years of age who has become an institution in Buenos Aires with her dance-therapy school devoted mainly, but not only, to people with physical or mental disabilities. The movie is produced by Igor Prinčič (Zoran, My Nephew the Idiot [+see also:
film review
trailer
making of
interview: Matteo Oleotto
film profile], last year's SIC (International Film Critics' Week) Award, with David Rubio (Imaginada Films) and Miha Černec (Staragara). "For the first time in competition Italy is represented by a documentary. But this has nothing to do with current trends, we were just waiting on the right title", explained SIC general delegate, Francesco Di Pace. 

Five of the seven films in competition for the RaroVideo Award are European productions, beginning with the Franco-Belgian Terre battue (40-Love), by Stéphane Demoustier, co-produced by the Dardenne brothers and starring Oliver Gourmet and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi as the parents of a young boy who is talented at tennis (read the article). In No-one's Child by Serbian Vuk Ršumović, the child in question was raised among wolves and is found in the spring of 1988, in the Bosnian mountains. In 1992, at the height of the war he will find himself on the front line. Produced by Art&Popcorn with BaBoon. 

Set in 1929 Zerrumpelt Herz (The Council of Birds) is a graduate film from the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg by German Timm Kröger. Music professor Paul Leinert (Thorsten Wien) receives an unexpected letter from his old friend Otto Schiffmann (Christian Blümel), a young and talented composer who left Berlin following a failed marriage. Viktoria Stolpe is the producer. 

Co-produced by France, Norway and Germany (Ciné Sud Promotion, Film Farms, Filmallee) Flapping in the Middle of Nowhere was created by director Nguyễn Hoàng Điệ, one of the leading personalities of Vietnamese independent cinema. While still a teenager, Huyen falls pregnant by a young lout and is forced to prostitute herself so that she can set aside enough money for an abortion.

The programme closes with Chinese Binguan (The Coffin in the Mountain) by Xin Yukun and Villa Touma by Palestinian Suha Arraf, second female director to be selected, screenwriter of The Syrian Bride and Lemon Tree [+see also:
trailer
film profile], and author of the documentary Women of Hamas. Opening outside of competition this year's programme, composed of seven world premières, an Iranian world première: Melbourne, directed by Nima Javidi and starring, among others, the main character of A Separation, Peyman Maadi.

(Translated from Italian)