A new, visual step forward
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 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)
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