The Venice International Film Festival unveiled the programme for its 81st roll-out July 23. Core to the doc offer is the Out Of Competition Non-fiction sidebar which throws up a dozen new films by big hitters such as Petra Costa, Amos Gitai, Asif Kapadia, Kevin Macdonald and Errol Morris.
Youth – Homecoming, the latest instalment in Wang Bing’s ‘Youth’ series and following on from Youth (Spring)which world-premiered at Cannes and Youth (Hard Times) which world-premieres at Locarno in August, is selected for Venezia 81 Competition.
Meanwhile Orrizonti Competition hosts the feature docs Wishing On A Star by Péter Kerekes, about folks’ belief in horoscopes, and Mistress Dispeller by Elizabeth Lo, about a professional who is hired by crisis-torn couples to save their marriages using any means necessary.
A further nine docs on cinema are selected for Venice Classics, including Miyazaki, L’Esprit de la Nature by Leo Favier, about the eponymous founder of Studio Ghibli, and Michael Lurie/Eric Friedler’s From Darkness to Light, about Jerry Lewis’ unreleased Holocaust film ‘The Day the Clown Cried.’
The 81ist Venice FF runs 28 Aug to 7 Sept 2024.
Out of Competition – Non-fiction (full synopses to follow)
- Apocalypse in the Tropics by Petra Costa (Brazil)
- Bestiari, Erbari, Lapidari by Massimo D’Anolfi, Martina Parenti (Italy, Switzerland)
- Why War by Amos Gitai (Israel, France)
- 2073 by Asif Kapadia (U.K.)
- One to One: John & Yoko by Kevin Macdonald, Sam Rice Edwards (U.K.)
- Separated by Errol Morris (U.S., Mexico)
- Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989 by Göran Hugo Olsson (Sweden, Finland, Denmark)
- Russians at War by Anastasia Trofimova (France, Canada)
- TWST/Things We Said Today by Andrei Ujica (France, Romania)
- Songs of Slow Burning Earth by Olha Zhurba (Ukraine, Denmark, Sweden)
- Riefenstahl by Andres Veiel (Germany)
Orrizonti Competition docs
- Wishing On A Star by Péter Kerekes (Italy, Croatia, Austria, Slovakia, Czech Republic)
- Mistress Dispeller by Elizabeth Lo (China, USA)
VENICE CLASSICS Documentaries About Cinema
- Miyazaki, L’Esprit de la Nature by by Leo Favier
- I will Revenge this World with Love – S Paradjanov by Zara Jian
- La Cinema de Jean-Pierre Leaud by Cyril Leuthy
- From Darkness to Light by Michael Lurie, Eric Friedler
- Carlo Mazzacurati – Una Certa Idea di Cinema by Enzo Monteleone, Mario Canale
- Chain Reactions by Alexander Philippe
- Maroun Returns to Beirut by Feyrouz Serhal
- Volonte – L’Uomo dal Mille Volti by Francesco Zippel
- Constelacion Portabella by Claudio Zulian
