29/07/2008

Europe (represented mostly by Italy, France and Germany), quality US films, Japanese animation and a comeback from Africa make up the heart of the official competition of the upcoming Venice Film Festival (August 27 – September 6), presented today in Rome by the event’s artistic director, Marco Muller.

The Italian titles vying for the Golden Lion are, in fact, those conjectured by the local press in recent days: Il papà di Giovanna by Pupi Avati, on the dramatic relationship between a father (a failed artist) and his daughter; Marco Bechis’ BirdWatchers, on the tensions between rich white landowners and the Indians in Brazil’s Mato Grosso do Sul (which Muller called an example of nomad cinema); Pappi Corsicato’s Il seme della discordia, based on a story by Heinrich von Kleist from which Eric Rohmer made his The Marquise of O; Ferzan Ozpetek’s A Perfect Day [+see also:
trailer
film profile], 24 hours in the simple but “unique” lives of a group of characters.

US cinema is represented by brilliant and original filmmakers such as Kathryn Bigelow (Hurt Locker), Jonathan Demme (Rachel Getting Married), Darren Aronofsky (The Wrestler), while the Coen brothers will open the festival with the out-of-competition Burn After Reading and Mexican screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga directs Charlize Theron and Kim Basinger in his feature debut The Burning Plain.

The competition will feature two French films and four co-productions. Patrick Mario Bernard and Pierre Trividic are taking to the Lido the fantasy thriller L’Autre, while Barbet Schroeder returns to fiction after his documentary Terror’s Advocate [+see also:
trailer
film profile] with a thriller shot in Tokyo, Inju [+see also:
trailer
film profile]. German maestro Werner Schroeter’s Nuit de chien, set in an imaginary country torn apart by civil war, features a French cast and is a French/German/Portuguese co-production.

New German cinema is present in Christian Petzold’s Jerichow, which promises "crime, passion and deep emotions". Also co-produced by France and Germany is Süt by Turkey’s Semih Kaplanoglu and Teza by Ethiopian director Haile Gerima. The latter, along with Algerina title Gabbla (Inland) by Tariq Teguia, marks the comeback of a continent trascurato as of late by the west’s largest festivals.

Competition line-up:

The Wrestler – Darren Aronofsky (US)
The Burning Plain – Guillermo Arriaga (US)
Il papà di Giovanna – (Italy)
BirdWatchers - Marco Bechis (Italy)
L’Autre - Patrick Mario Bernard, Pierre Trividic (France)
Hurt Locker - Kathryn Bigelow (US)
Il seme della discordia - Pappi Corsicato (Italy)
Rachel Getting Married - Jonathan Demme (US)
Teza - Haile Gerima (Ethiopia/Germany/France)
Paper Soldier - Aleksey German Jr. (Russia)
Süt - Semih Kaplanoglu (Turkey/France/Germany)
Achilles and the Tortoise - Takeshi Kitano (Japan)
Ponyo on Cliff by the Sea - Hayao Miyazaki (Japan)
Vegas: Based on a True Story - Amir Naderi (US)
The Sky Crawlers - Oshii Mamoru (Japan)
Un giorno perfetto - Ferzan Özpetek (Italy)
Jerichow - Christian Petzold (Germany)
La Bête dans l’ombre - Barbet Schroeder Inju (France)
Nuit de chien - Werner Schroeter (France/Germany/Portugal)
Inland - Tariq Teguia (Algeria/France)
Plastic City - YU Lik-wai (Brazil/China/Hong Kong/Japan)