The numbers for the Giornate degli Autori and its stellar guests

The fourteenth edition of the Giornate degli Autori wrapped up on Friday night with the awards ceremony at the Villa degli Autori and yesterday's screening of Candelaria, the last film on the program in the official selection, which walked away, and back to Colombia and Cuba, with the GdA Director's Award.

So the spotlights go dark on a very successful edition, packed with emotions triggered by the films, first, and then the events, talks and guests who made the 2017 Giornate so special.

29 films crowded our slate, ranging from feature films in competition (12) and documentaries out of competition to special events and special screenings. Plus a turnout of 9,136 viewers in the theaters to meet the filmmakers and get a peek at their latest films.

In addition to the actors and directors presenting their films and meeting the press at the Villa, there was a long list of a high-profile guests who attended screenings and other Giornate events: eighteen in all. In no particular order: Robert Guédiguian, Ariane Ascaride, Saverio Costanzo, Abel Ferrara, Alba Rohrwacher, Milena Mancini, Elia Suleiman and Daniele Vicari, our first special guest, with us as a juror for the BookCiak Prize, the pre-opening Giornate event. Then we had John Landis, who brought the legend of Michael Jackson back to life at Venice; Sofia Djama, the Algerian director, with her film Les bienheureux [The Blessed] on the Orizzonti competitive lineup; Paola Turci, a juror for Venice's collateral prize Soundtrack Stars Award; and the Manetti Bros, in the running for the Golden Lion at Venice74 with their Ammore e malavita [Love and Bullets]. Add to that the showrunner Hagai Levi (writer on In Treatment), who came to the Giornate courtesy of 100autori, to speak on copyright issues; Tsai Ming-liang, who selected the Villa to present his Virtual Reality, with his "making-of" on the film The Deserted.

Last but not least, Vikas Khanna, the Michelin-star Indian chef who treated Giornate guests to tastings of 20 different dishes from his kitchen as a way to celebrate the premiere of the documentary Buried Seeds in which he stars. And where there's food, there are toasts to be made: precisely 360 bottles of prosecco uncorked, along with 240 bottles of wine and 720 bottles of beer over eleven days of festive imbibing. Guests and audiences at the Villa downed over 3,000 cups of coffee and went through 3,250 bottles of water. 4,415 pictures were taken by the Giornate's two photographers alone (a sampling of 230 of those shots can be seen in the photo gallery on the Giornate website.

28 actors and directors from the films on our slate came along for the Giornate's ride and flew off towards cinema's farther reaches, imitating the horizontal hero in the poster for our fourteenth edition. Next year there will be at least 15 good reasons to come back to the Giornate degli Autori.