23/07/2008

All seven debut films in competition in this year’s International Critics Week (August 28-September 5) are world premieres. The Venice Film Festival sidebar is promoted by the National Union of Italian Film Critics.

“The films are all very new, some have just been finished. It wasn’t easy to get them, competition among festivals is becoming increasingly more ferocious”, said SIC General Delegate Francesco Di Pace. “The only one released domestically so far is Norwegian film Lunch [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Eva Sørhaug, which we chose as the opening film and out of competition. It is an acerbic ensemble comedy set in Oslo, with moments of very dark humour”.

Besides a tribute to legendary editor Franco Kim Arcalli, Italy is represented by “two examples of independent and craftsman cinema”, added Di Pace: Pranzo di Ferragosto, directed by and starring the very young Gianni Di Gregorio (co-screenwriter of Gomorrah [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Domenico Procacci
interview: Jean Labadie
interview: Matteo Garrone
film profile]), and produced by Matteo Garrone; and closing film Pinuccio Lovero – Sogno di una morte di mezza estate by Pippo Mezzapesa, the true story of a man who dreams of being a gravedigger.

The protagonist of Samuel Collardey’s French title L’Apprenti is also looking to fulfil his dream. The “fictional” documentary focuses on an adolescent studying agriculture and his impassioned apprenticeship on a farm. French funds are also behind Kabuli Kid by Afghani filmmaker Barmak Akram (a political refugee in France since the age of 15), the story of a newborn abandoned in a taxi and of his mother’s attempts to get him back.

The European offerings are completed by Namik Kabil’s Bosnian film Čuvari noći, a wild and laconic comedy about a group of night-time security guards in a large furniture factory; and Selim Evci’s Turkish title Two Lines, a portrait of a dissatisfied couple set against the backdrop of a contemporary Istanbul and its contradictions.

Lastly, from Asia, are Malaysian musical Sell Out! by Yeo Joonhan and the sophisticated Huanggua by China’s Zhou Yaowu, on the existential traumas of three families suspended between the provinces and big cities.

(Translated from Italian)