IN THIS PAGE:
- Stonewalling
- Le Favolose
- Notti veneziane
STONEWALLING
Giornate degli Autori – Official Competion
Giappone, 2022, Director: Huang Ji, Ryuji Otsuka, With: Honggui Yao, Xiaoxiong Huang, Zilong Xiao, Running Time: 148’
“What exactly is life?”. This is the question that directors Huang Ji and Ryuji Otsuka put at the base of Stonewall. Ji is a Chinese woman, and Otsuka is a Japanese man; together, they tell the story of young Lynn, who wants to enter the program to become a flight attendant. Her persistence is stopped by an unexpected pregnancy. Lynn is uncertain about what to do and is running out of time. Then she says to her boyfriend that she had an abortion and decides to return to his parents to figure out the right thing. “We wrote this story about the pregnancy of a young woman spending ten months shooting,” directors said. “We wanted to analyze through the lens of time her point of view from the moment she understands to be pregnant until the birth of her child. We wanted to observe the whole experience and trace how her feeling changed”.
Vania Amitrano
LE FAVOLOSE
Italia/Francia, 2022. Director Roberta Torre. With Porpora Marcasciano, Nicole De Leo, Sofia Mehiel, Veet Sandeh, Mizia Ciulini, Massimina Lizzeri, Antonia Iaia, Mina Serrano. Distribution Europictures. Durata 1h e 14’. Production: Stemal Entertainment, Faber Produzioni con Rai Cinema Supported by: MiC, Regione Emilia-Romagna, Emilia-Romagna Film Commission In collaboration with: MIT (Movimento identità Trans), Film Commission Torino Piemonte.
«Venice is the “place of the heart” of my cinema», says Italian director Roberta Torre that debuted here (International Critic’s week) with her first and acclaimed feature, the satirical musical about mafia Tano da morire (1997). «I still have a vivid memory of that moment. It really was extraordinary », reminds Torre that comes back at the Venice Film Festival in the selection of Venice Days’ Notti Veneziane with Le favolose. Torre’s style is made of bright and vital contrasts and finds ideal storytelling between documentary and surrealist fairytale in this story about a group of transgender friends. They meet again after a few years to celebrate one of them who died years before and was buried with a male suit that denied his identity. Queste si riuniscono dopo anni per omaggiare una di loro, morta anni prima con una sepoltura in abiti maschili che ne ha negato l’identità. «It’s a movie about ghosts, visions, appearances: it’s The Big Chill meeting horror!» says Torre, explaining how Le favolose talks about a universal topic, because «when death is near, the memory of each one of us can be distorted and violated».
Emanuele Bucci
Italian (art-house) cinema is back at Notti Veneziane
Notti Veneziane are back. The partnership between Giornate degli Autori, Isola Edipo and Sala Laguna has been confirmed for this year and there 9 Italian art-house movies in the program, a valid proof of the creative energy of our cinema and its will to open its boundaries to different stories and culture. The selection begins with Le favolose by Roberta Torre and goes on with Kristos, The Last Child by Giulia Amati, in which the child of the title is the only student left in an elementary school on a Greek island. The passion for football of a group of immigrant women in Rome is the story told in Las leonas by Isabel Achával and Chiara Bondì. Il paese delle persone integre by Christian Carmosino Mereu follows the fights and hopes of four inhabitants of Burkina Faso the year before the elections. Pablo di Neanderthal by Antonello Matarazzo reflects on our past, present and future, starting from the works of the artist Pablo Echaurren, Spaccaossa by Vincenzo Pirrotta tells the dark story of a gang that breaks arms and legs to swindle the insurance companies. racconta la cupa parabola di una banda che mutila arti per truffare le assicurazioni. La timidezza delle chiome by Valentina Bertani is the story of two 19 years old identical twins, Un nemico invisibile by Riccardo Campagna and Federico Savonitto starts from the homicide perpetrated by the police of the disabled son of a couple of Istrian farmers. che prende le mosse dall’omicidio, da parte della polizia, del figlio disabile di una famiglia di contadini istriani. Stefano Collizzolli and Daniele Gaglianone make a political and generational balance 20 years after G8 in Genova.
Emanuele Bucci
