Stereo Girl will open, out of competition, the International Film Critics’ Week (SIC), the autonomous and parallel section organised by the Italian National Film Critics Syndicate as part of the Venice Film Festival, which will take place between 27 August and 6 September and which this year celebrates its fortieth edition. The French-Canadian film by Caroline Deruas Peano is set in the south of France in the 1990s, where live two unstoppable 17-year-old girls, who are inseparable friends. The British film 100 Nights of Hero by Julia Jackman, based on the homonymous graphic novel, will close the section.

The competition’s selection includes seven debut films (chosen from the roughly 700 feature films submitted from all over the world), all presented as world premieres, while the SIC@SIC section offers a competitive selection of seven short films by Italian filmmakers. “At SIC, our taste for discovery materialises in the specific context of the debut,” highlighted general delegate Beatrice Fiorentino. “And our work is based on an essential principle: choice – and therefore the selection and the programme – as a responsible act. Only time will tell if our most recent bets will bear fruit (and the experience of SIC@SIC would suggest that they will), but what really matters is that coherent thinking, a hunger for novelty and an anarchic spirit continue to be our constant stimuli.”

Let us turn to the titles in competition. AGON by Italian director Giulio Bertelli tells the story of three athletes training for and then competing in the disciplines of shooting, fencing and judo at the upcoming, fictitious 2024 Ludoj Olympic Games. Cotton Queen (ArteKino Award from the Atelier de la Cinéfondation at the Cannes Film Festival in 2022) by Sudanese-Russian filmmaker Suzannah Mirghani is a delicate story of female emancipation set in the cotton camps in a Sudanese village. Director and visual artist Evi Kalogiropoulou signs Gorgonà (awarded in 2021 at the Cinemart and at the Atelier of the Cinéfondation), which rewrites the classical myth in a contemporary key, with two characters who aren’t afraid to confront power. British film Ish, by writer, director, visual artist and composer Imran Perretta, is a coming-of-age story about two 12-year-old friends struggling to hold on to their connection following a traumatic arrest and search by the police.

Yanis Koussim, one of the founders of Plateau19, a collective of directors supporting independent cinema in Algeria, presents Roqia, set in 1993 when, following a car accident that caused his amnesia, Ahmed returns to his native village, where nothing seems familiar to him anymore, neither his wife nor his children. Oscar Hudson has moved away from ethnography to turn to the world of low-cost music videos in London and is now one of the most famous voices in the global short film sector; his debut feature Straight Circle tells the story of two enemy soldiers stationed in the remote border of a desert who suddenly forget which side they were on. The only documentary in competition is Waking Hours, by the Italian directing duo of Federine Cammarata and Filippo Foscarini, about a clan of Afghani smugglers perpetually waiting for people to ferry across the border, travelling through the labyrinth of a never-ending and silent night.

The film in the SIC section, like all the debut fiction features presented in the various competitive sections of the Venice Film Festival (the Official Selection and the Autonomous and Parallel Sections), will be competing for the Venice “Luigi De Laurentiis” Debut Film Lion of the Future Award.  

The selection:

Competition

AGON - Giulio Bertelli (Italy/USA/France)
Cotton Queen - Suzannah Mirghani (Germany/France/Palestine/Egypt/Qatar/Saudi Arabia)
Gorgonà - Evi Kalogiropoulou (Greece/France)
Ish - Imran Perretta (United Kingdom)
Roqia - Yanis Koussim (Algeria/France/Qatar/Saudi Arabia)
Straight Circle - Oscar Hudson (United Kingdom/South Africa)
Waking Hours - Federico Cammarata, Filippo Foscarini (Italy)

Out of Competition

Stereo Girls - Caroline Deruas Peano (France/Canada) (opening film)
100 Nights of Hero - Julia Jackman (United Kingdom) (closing film)

SIC@SIC Short Italian Cinema

Competition

ARCA - Lorenzo Quagliozzi (Italy)
Family Feast - Nadir Taji (Italy)
Marina - Paoli De Luca (Italy)
The Motorcycle - Matteo Giampetruzzi (Italy/Denmark/Spain)
The Lost Child - Paolo Baiguera (Italy)
The Pørnøgraphər - HARIEL (Italy)
Saints - Valeria Gaudieri (Italy)

Special events

Remains - Fabio Bobbio (Italy) (opening short film)
Confini, canti - Simone Massi (Italy) (closing short film)