23/07/2024 - The Venice autonomous section offers a range of exclusive talents with seven debut features from across the world, as well as two opening and closing films and short films

This year as well, the International Film Critics’ Week section, now in its 39th edition, offers a range of exclusive talents with seven debut features from across the world, in addition to the two opening and closing ones, as well as the short films of SIC@SIC. The autonomous and parallel section organised by the National Syndicate of Italian Film Critics (SNCCI) in the context of the Venice Film Festival, directed by Beatrice Fiorentino, will take place between 28 August and 7 September.

“The cinema of the present,” explained Fiorentino to the press, “seems to indulge disorientation, the sensation of finding oneself in a moment of suspension, of waiting” which characterises this “indeterminate present”. The films making up the programme of the SIC “go in that direction, confirming the confusion that unites us at every latitude of the planet. A selection with strong chiaroscuro that transmits a sense of general instability, and which consists of a range of proposals that, in their composite variety, communicate with each other according to the principle of attraction, generating an even broader, more dynamic and multifaceted discourse as a whole.”

Opening the SIC this year is Planète B [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Aude Léa Rapin
film profile], the second film by Aude Léa Rapin (her debut Heroes Don’t Die [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Aude Léa Rapin
film profile] was selected in Critics’ Week in Cannes in 2019), a sci-fi dystopian film set in France in 2039 which reflects on the ethical principles that govern our lives. The closing film is French as well: Little Jaffna [+see also:
film review
interview: Lawrence Valin
film profile] by Lawrence Valin, a debut feature about a young policeman infiltrated in a criminal group operating in the neighbourhood of the Tamil community in Paris.

There is one Italian film amongst the seven in competition: Anywhere Anytime [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Milad Tangshir
film profile] by Iranian filmmaker Milad Tangshir, about an illegal immigrant in Turin whose bicycle, with which he works as a rider, gets stolen. An evident homage to Vittorio De Sica, with the contemporary look of Matteo Garrone: “the bitter awakening of someone who arrived in Europe dreaming of a better life”, commented Beatrice Fiorentino. The other films in competition are the unusual rom-com Paul & Paulette Take a Bath [+see also:
film review
interview: Jethro Massey
film profile] by the English-French filmmaker Jethro Massey, an encounter between two characters united by their strange attraction to death; Peacock [+see also:
film review
interview: Bernhard Wenger
film profile], the debut feature of Austrian director Bernhard Wenger, developed with the Cannes Résidence in 2020, which talks about fiction, appearances and vanity; Don’t Cry, Butterfly, a family history with the "women's question" in the foreground, by Vietnamese filmmaker Dương Diệu Linh; No Sleep Till [+see also:
film review
interview: Alexandra Simpson
film profile] by French-American director Alexandra Simpson, set in a Florida threatened by an imminent hurricane; Perfumed with Mint [+see also:
film review
interview: Muhammed Hamdy
film profile], the debut feature by Egyptian DoP Muhammed Hamdy; the documentary Homegrown, with which the American filmmaker Michael Premo looks at an America at war with itself, observing from the inside the activity of a supremacist group supporting Trump.

The selection:

Competition

Anywhere Anytime [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Milad Tangshir
film profile] - Milad Tangshir (Italy)
Don’t Cry, Butterfly - Dương Diệu Linh (Vietnam/Singapore/Philippines/Indonesia)
Homegrown - Michael Premo (United States)
No Sleep Till [+see also:
film review
interview: Alexandra Simpson
film profile] - Alexandra Simpson (United States/Switzerland)
Paul & Paulette Take a Bath [+see also:
film review
interview: Jethro Massey
film profile] - Jethro Massey (United Kingdom)
Peacock [+see also:
film review
interview: Bernhard Wenger
film profile] - Bernhard Wenger (Austria/Germany)
Perfumed with Mint [+see also:
film review
interview: Muhammed Hamdy
film profile] - Muhammed Hamdy (Egypt/France/Tunisia)

Out of Competition

Planète B [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Aude Léa Rapin
film profile] - Aude Léa Rapin (France/Belgium) (opening film)
Little Jaffna [+see also:
film review
interview: Lawrence Valin
film profile] - Lawrence Valin (France) (closing film)

SIC@SIC Short Italian Cinema

Competition

At Least I Will Be 8 294 400 Pixel - Marco Talarico (Italy)
Cowboy Billi - Fede Gianni (Italy)
Black Silver - Francesco Manzato (Italy)
Phantom - Gabriele Manzoni (Italy)
Playing God - Matteo Burani (Italy/France)
Sans Dieu - Alessandro Rocca (Italy)
Things That My Best Friend Lost - Marta Innocenti (Italy)

Special Events

Dark Globe - Donato Sansone (Italy/France) (opening short film)
The Eggregores’ Theory - Andrea Gatopoulos (Italy) (opening short film)
Sunday Night - Matteo Tortone (Italy) (closing short film)

(Translated from Italian)