Over the ten-day Venice Film Festival, Giornate welcomed a panoply of international personalities as its guests as well, presenting their films or taking part in masterclasses and other events open to Lido audiences
From the moon to the England of Georgia Oakley, director of the film Blue Jean (winner of the People’s Choice Award), by way of the Lebanon of Wissam Charaf (Dirty Difficult Dangerous, honored with the Europa Cinemas Label) and the Canada of Graham Foy (whose film The Maiden earned him the BNL for Cinema of the Future Award), and all the way to Sao Miguel Island in the Azores (Portugal), where Wolf and Dog was set, and for which Cláudia Varejão won the 2022 GdA Director’s Award. This was the journey made by the films selected for the 19th annual Giornate degli Autori, where we gazed at the moon drawn by Rä di Martino over ten days of films and talks with the icons of independent film, present and future.
The independent sidebar of the Venice Film Festival promoted by the filmmakers’ associations ANAC and 100autori welcomed audiences to the Sala Perla, finally at full capacity after two years of restrictions dictated by the pandemic. Ten films screened in competition, of which four were first films and five were directed by women filmmakers, plus the special events and then the closing film to round out the event: The Listener, directed by Steve Buscemi and starring Tessa Thompson.
Just a hop, skip and a jump away from the Palazzo del Cinema, between the lagoon and the sea, the Casa degli Autori had a packed calendar again this year, between premieres and other events. Venetian Nights unspooled in the Sala Laguna, a historic cinema reopened to Venetians thanks to the joint efforts of Giornate degli Autori and Edipo Re; the showcase, organized in concert with Isola Edipo and co-directed by Gaia Furrer and Silvia Jop, was a veritable feast of Italian films probing the documentary vein. The Giornate venue also hosted a full program of events delving into current industry issues and others focusing on students, from the Bookciak, Azione! Award to the Focus SIAE talks on trends in TV series, or the MUBI talks on contemporary voices in film and the masterclasses arranged by the CSC – National Film School. Plus the Sardegna Film Commission panels, the latest act of the 100+1 project, and the events arranged by ANAC – the exhibition “L’onda lunga: the extra-ordinary story of an association” and the talk “Ad occhi aperti: school and cinema, Act II” – and by 100autori: the conference “Gender Equality and Equal Opportunity”.
The magnificent halls of the Hotel Excelsior (the Veneto Region Space, the Italian Pavilion, and the Fondazione Ente dello Spettacolo space) once again resounded with the popular Miu Miu Women’s Tales talk series, featuring the two women directors of this year’s shorts (Janicza Bravo and Carla Simon) and a sparkling array of all-female acting talent and artistry (Natasha Lyonne, Kelsey Lu, Rachel Brosnahan, Alba Baptista, Raffey Cassidy, Quintessa Swindell, Lili Reinhart, Yasmin Finney, and Emma Appleton).
Over the ten-day Venice Film Festival, Giornate welcomed a panoply of other international personalities as its guests as well, presenting their films or taking part in masterclasses and other events open to Lido audiences: actors and filmmakers of the caliber of Céline Sciamma, Mark Cousins, Stefania Sandrelli, Salvatore Mereu, Roberta Torre, Bob Odenkirk, Paola Randi, Rosy McEwen, Selene Caramazza, Daniele Ciprì, Brando Pacitto, Stella Mastrantonio, Martina Gatti, Paolo Rossi, and Sébastien Lifshitz. Tributes, awards, and special screenings brought us face to face with the likes of Artavazd Pelechian, Nanni Moretti, Edgar Reitz, Gianni Amelio, Alessandro Camon, and Abel Ferrara (with Padre Pio in competition).
2022 also marked Giornate’s debut on LinkedIn and TikTok, social media stars that amplify and diversify the target of an event that more and more is designed to attract young people and professionals and win over an audience that is across the board, differentiated from the main Venice audience, as our followers proved: 37,000 interactions in the past month via Facebook posts, 26,000 accounts reached on Instagram, 226,000 views on YouTube, and 84,000 on Twitter; as well as over 60,000 videos reproduced on TikTok for an audience of 1,000 new followers. It all goes to show that by using hybrid communications strategies, festivals can learn the lessons of the pandemic and expand their own horizons with tools like videos, livestreams and the MYmovies web room.
“In every corner of the Venice Film Festival this year,” comments Giorgio Gosetti, general delegate, “there was a festive, youthful air that revitalized the festival rituals. To hope that this spirit will escape the confines of the Lido and infect the cinemas themselves is not just a dream; it’s what we all work towards, in the belief that talent promoted by a festival can become a shared heritage of film lovers. Now Giornate looks towards its twentieth anniversary, safe in the knowledge that it has found its place and has a value that filmmakers and audiences instantly recognize.”
“The journey made by this 19th edition,” says Gaia Furrer, artistic director, “really did land us on the moon. Through the films presented this year, from our vantage point amidst the lunar craters, we were able to see the Earth and our owns lives from a whole new angle, a clearer view, that of narrative and time, which arranges things in order so we can understand them fully. The words of the artists who were our guests, both Venice regulars and first-timers at Giornate, both international figures and a multitude of Italians, allowed us to understand the deeper, intimate meaning of a selection that ranges between past and future, and in so doing manages to show us the present. We are proud to have shared with you this “leap” into space, and simply can’t wait to set off on our next adventure!”
