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Venice Film Festival · 2017

Venice Film Festival 2017

Venice Days

Programme

27 films · 4 reviews

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120 BPM (Beats Per Minute) (120 Battements Par Minute, 120 Beats Per Minute)

Review preview for 120 BPM (Beats Per Minute)

Campillo has a weakness in not knowing when to trim all the talking.

Richard Mowe · 3 out of 5
Portrait of the ACT UP activist group, a direct action collective aiming to impact the lives of people with AIDS.

(Country: France; Year: 2017; Director: Robin Campillo; Writer: Robin Campillo; Stars: Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, Arnaud Valois, Adèle Haenel, Yves Heck, Emmanuel Ménard, Rahim-Silvioli Mehdi, Antoine Reinartz, Caroline Piette, Marco Horanieh, Pascal Tantot, François Rabette, Naelle Dariya, Ariel Borenstein, Coralie Russier, Saadia Bentaïeb)

Full review See: 120 Beats Per Minute award-winner Nahuel Biscayart on sexuality, activism and the pink condom , Robin Campillo on AIDS drama 120 BPM, writing from the heart and collaboration

Lux Prize

#13 Carmen

What do you need to be, to be really funny? Stand-up comedienne Carmen Lynch knows what it takes.

(Country: Italy, US; Year: 2017; Director: Chloë Sevigny)

Miu Miu Women’s Tales

#14 (The [End) of History Illusion]

"We understand this political climate has turned your world upside down," the 1950s TV-ad voice- over tells you. "Underground shelter is your best defense against radioactive fallout." Cue perky music, tap dancing twins, and a ballerina that bakes the perfect croissant.

(Country: Italy, US; Year: 2017; Director: Celia Rowlson-Hall)

Miu Miu Women’s Tales

Agnelli

Review preview for Agnelli

Densely structured and thorough.

Jennie Kermode · 3.5 out of 5
The story of Gianni Agnelli, the legendary Italian industrialist and playboy, as told by family, friends, lovers, professional confidantes and rivals.

(Country: US; Year: 2018; Director: Nick Hooker)

Full review

Special Event

Aquagranda in crescendo

On the 50th anniversary of the +196cm high tide that flooded and wrecked Venice in 1966, Teatro La Fenice produces the new opera Aquagranda, as a reminder of the tragic days in which Venice and many islands of her lagoon ran the risk of disappearing forever.

(Country: Italy; Year: 2017; Director: Giovanni Pellegrini; Stars: Damiano Michieletto, Luigi Cerantola, Roberto Bianchin, Filippo Perocco, Marco Angius, Paolo Fantin, Fortunato Ortombina, Cristiano Chiarot)

Special Screening

Candelaria

The Nineties. Cuba is drowning in hunger, cigars and rum. In this grim landscape, the life of Candelaria and Victor Hugo, a couple who stayed together out of inertia, takes a surprising turn the day Candelaria finds a video camera.

(Country: Germany, Argentina, Norway, Colombia, Cuba; Year: 2017; Director: Jhonny Hendrix; Writer: Jhonny Hendrix, Maria Camila Arias, Abel Arcos Soto, Carlos Quintela; Stars: Philipp Hochmair, Alden Knight, Verónica Lynn, Manuel Viveros)

Equilibrium (l'equilibrio)

When a priest gets a transfer to his home region, he discovers some uncomfortable truths about where he has come to live.

(Country: Italy; Year: 2017; Director: Vincenzo Marra; Writer: Vincenzo Marra; Stars: Mimmo Borrelli, Roberto del Gaudio, Lucio Giannetti, Giuseppe D'Ambrosio, Francesca Zazzera, Autilia Ranieri, Paolo Sassanelli, Astrid Meloni, Francesco Pio Romano, Sergio Del Prete)

Eye On Juliet

A love story told through the eye of a spider drone.

(Country: Canada, France, Morocco; Year: 2017; Director: Kim Nguyen; Writer: Kim Nguyen; Stars: Joe Cole, Lina El Arabi, Faycal Zeglat, Mohammed Sakhi, Hatim Seddiki, Mansour Badri, Mbarek El Mahmoudi, Amal Ayouch, Soumiya Abdelkader, Hassan El Ganouni, Alexia Fast, Ayisha Issa, Brittany Drisdelle, Paul Hopkins, Marianne Farley)

Getting Naked: A Burlesque Story

Documentary peels back the curtain to reveal the sexy sub-culture of the neo-burlesque scene in New York City.

(Country: US; Year: 2017; Director: James Lester; Stars: Hazel Honeysuckle, Julie Atlas Muz, James Habacker, Darlinda Just Darlinda, Gal Friday, Miss Jezebel Express, Minnie Tonka, Perle Noire)

Special Event

Il tentato suicidio nell'adolescenza (TS Giovanile)

Newly discovered documentary looks at the early pioneer years at a psychiatric ward in Milan's Policlinico hospital.

(Year: 1968; Director: Ermanno Olmi)

Special Event

I'm (Endless Like The Space)

Jessica is a 17-year-old girl who lives in a world that looks like ours, at first glance, but something is a little off; it's a place that could be our world in the near future, perhaps, or in an alternate dimension.

(Country: Italy; Year: 2017; Director: Anne Riitta Ciccone; Writer: Anne Riitta Ciccone, Lorenzo d'Amico de Carvalho; Stars: Barbora Bobulova, Mathilde Bundschuh, Guglielmo Scilla, Julia Jentsch, Piotr Adamczyk, Katie McGovern, Stefano Rossi, Vita Tepel, Yoon C. Joyce, Henrieke Fritz, Marianna Dallabetta Armani, Lissy Pernthaler, Peter Schorn)

Special Screening

La Legge Del Numero Uno

Three men with nothing in common but a desire for freedom that absorbs them 24/7 pin all their hopes for a few day's reprieve from prison on an audience with a judge.

(Country: Italy; Year: 2017; Director: Alessandro D'Alatri; Writer: Antonella Bolelli Ferrera, Massimiliano Griner; Stars: Marco Palvetti, Andrea Sartoretti, Pietro Bontempo, Francesca Della Ragione, Alessandro Parrello, Marika De Chiara, Alessandra Schiavoni)

Special Event

Life Guidance

The film is set in the near future, in a world of perfect capitalism. Society is sustained by a class of top achievers; meanwhile, so-called minimum recipients live under sedation in Fortresses of Sleep. But one day, one man begins to rebel.

(Country: Austria; Year: 2017; Director: Ruth Mader; Stars: Kristina Bangert, Rainer Egger, Arno Frisch, Nicolas Jarosch, Fritz Karl, Peter Knaack, Katharina Lorenz, Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly, Petra Morzé, Martin Niedermair, Johann Adam Oest, Udo Samel, Alexander Stecher, Alexander Strobele, Florian Teichtmeister)

Longing (Ga'agua)

Ariel, a well-off, childless man, gets a phone call from his college girlfriend. She needs to tell him a couple of very surprising things: first, when they broke up twenty years ago, she was pregnant and went on to have a lovely baby boy. The second thing will change his life forever

(Country: Israel; Year: 2017; Director: Savi Gabizon; Writer: Savi Gabizon; Stars: Neta Riskin, Yaakov Zada Daniel, Salim Dau, Shmil Ben Ari, Yoram Toledano, Shai Avivi, Samira Saraya, Assi Levy, Ori Laizerouvich, Ella Armony, Shimon Mimran, Oleg Levin, Nirit Yaron, Shiri Golan, Amos Mokadi)

Looking For Oum Kulthum

Mitra is an ambitious artist ho embarks on her dream project of making a film about the legendary Egyptian singer and diva Oum Kulthum.

(Country: Germany, Italy, Austria, Morocco; Year: 2017; Director: Shirin Neshat, Shoja Azari; Writer: Shoja Azari, Ahmad Diba, Shirin Neshat; Stars: Neda Rahmanian, Yasmin Raeis, Mehdi Moinzadeh, Kais Nashif, Soumaya Akaaboune, Rainer Guldener, Najia Skalli, Nadia Niazi, Nadia Benzakour, Eric Cuvelier, Rodin Hamidi, Jalil Tijani, Nour Kamar, Bandar Atifi, Mohammed Bouih)

The Millionairs

Over the course of one long night, mountain roads crisscrossing wooded slopes become the scene of a series of gruesome murders, all committed by an array of characters trying get their hands on a mysterious suitcase.

(Country: Italy; Year: 2017; Director: Claudio Santamaria; Stars: Sabrina Impacciatore, Giordano De Plano, Peppe Servillo, Massimo De Santis, Fabio Limongi)

Special Screening

M

Lila and Mo meet at a bus stop. Lila has a paralysing speech impediment. Mo is chatty and exuberant. Lila is preparing for her exams. Mo illegally races cars for a living. Opposites attract, and they fall in love. But Mo carries a secret burden.

(Country: France; Year: 2017; Director: Sara Forestier; Writer: Sara Forestier; Stars: Sara Forestier, Redouanne Harjane, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Isabelle Caillat, Maryne Cayon, Nicolas Vaude, Sandra Rosinsky, Mathilde Roehrich, Michel Charrel, Kader Bouallaga, Liv Andren, Guillaume Verdier, Maud Thibault, Priscillia Jones, Sarah Aj)

Raccontare Venezia

A young actress travels to Venice to revisit the loca- tions and ambience of some famous films made in the city floating in the lagoon.

(Year: 2017; Director: Wilma Labate; Writer: Wilma Labate, Irene Bignardi; Stars: Silvio D'Amico)

Special Screening

The Resolute (Il risoluto)

Piero is an elderly man who has long retired to a house in the woods of Vermont. His meeting with a filmmaker awakens in Piero the need to talk about his own past, long suppressed, as a child soldier in the ranks of the Decima Mas, one of the most violent fascist militias.

(Country: Italy, France; Year: 2017; Director: Giovanni Donfrancesco; Writer: Giovanni Donfrancesco)

Special Event

Sami Blood (Sameblod)

Review preview for Sami Blood

This is a powerful film that not only resonates with the recent cycle of films concerning rebellious girls, but with films made by indigerous peoples.

Sarah Artt · 5 out of 5
A Sámi girl experiences racism in the 1930s.

(Country: Denmark, Sweden, Norway; Year: 2016; Director: Amanda Kernell; Writer: Amanda Kernell; Stars: Hanna Alström, Anders Berg, Katarina Blind, Beata Cavallin, Malin Crépin, Julius Fleischanderl, Ylva Gustafsson, Tom Kappfjell, Anna Sofie Bull Kuhmunen, Andreas Kundler, Marika Lindström, Maj-Doris Rimpi, Olle Sarri, Tove Skeidsvoll, Anne Biret Somby)

Full review

Lux Prize

Samui Song

Viyada, a Thai soap opera actress in her mid-30s, finds herself increasingly pressured by her husband Jérôme, a rich foreigner entirely devoted to a charismatic cult leader called The Holy One. Viyada has no other choice than to take the most drastic measures in order to escape from the cult's influence once and for all.

(Country: Thailand, Germany, Norway; Year: 2017; Director: Pen-Ek Ratanaruang; Stars: Chermarn Boonyasak, David Asavanond, Vithaya Pansringarm, Stéphane Sednaoui)

Tainted Souls (Il contagio)

The lives of the tenants of a working-class apartment building on the outskirts intersect against a backdrop of crime, urban speculation, confused feelings and tainted relationships.

(Country: Italy; Year: 2017; Director: Matteo Botrugno, Daniele Coluccini; Writer: Matteo Botrugno, Daniele Coluccini, Nuccio Siano; Stars: Anna Foglietta, Vinicio Marchioni, Vincenzo Salemme, Giulia Bevilacqua, Luciana De Falco, Maurizio Tesei, Daniele Parisi, Michele Botrugno)

The Taste Of Rice Flower (Mi Hua Zhi Wei)

Ye Nan, a mother belonging to the Dai minority, comes back to her village after living in the city. She wants to take care of the 13-year-old daughter she'd left behind, but the road to rebuilding their relationship is full of obstacles.

(Country: China; Year: 2017; Director: Pengfei; Writer: Pengfei, Ying Ze; Stars: Ying Ze, Ye Bule, Ye Men)

Thirst Street

Grieving over a lover’s suicide, flight attendant Gina loses her grip on reality after falling for a suave Parisian bartender.

(Country: US, France; Year: 2017; Director: Nathan Silver; Writer: Nathan Silver, C Mason Wells; Stars: Lindsay Burdge, Lola Bessis, Damien Bonnard, Alice de Lencquesaing, Esther Garrel, Jacques Nolot, Valerie Laury, Françoise Lebrun, Isabelle Ungaro, Christophe Tek, Laure Hennequart, Lubna Playoust, Christophe Favre, Christophe Dimitri Réveille, Cindy Silver)

Special Event

Volubilis

In the Moroccan city of Meknès, recently married Abdelkader and Malika struggle to make ends meet. They dream of leaving the family house and finally starting a life of their own together. But one day at work, Abdelkader gets mixed up in a violent incident that will turn their lives upside down.

(Country: Morocco, France, Qatar; Year: 2017; Director: Faouzi Bensaïdi; Stars: Mouhcine Malzi, Nadia Kounda, Abdelhadi Talbi, Nezha Rahil, Faouzi Bensaidi)

Where The Shadows Fall (Dove cadono le ombre)

Nurse Anna and her assistant Hans work in an old folks' home that was once the orphanage where they were imprisoned as children, and they still seem trapped in time and space. A face from the past brings the horror back to life.

(Country: Italy; Year: 2017; Director: Valentina Pedicini; Writer: Francesca Manieri, Valentina Pedicini; Stars: Elena Cotta, Federica Rosellini, Josafat Vagni, Lucrezia Guidone, Danila Di Simio, Elena De Luca, Federico Martini, Raffaella Panichi)

Western

Review preview for Western

It quite subtly toys with the iconography of the genre - poking at the outlying parts of it, the parts dealing with "foreigness" and "home" rather than the more dependable elements of right and wrong.

Rory Ford · 3.5 out of 5
A group of German construction workers on a job in Bulgaria begin to compete for the approval of the locals.

(Country: Germany; Year: 2017; Director: Valeska Grisebach; Writer: Valeska Grisebach; Stars: Meinhard Neumann, Reinhardt Wetrek, Waldemar Zang, Detlef Schaich)

Full review

Lux Prize