As the Venice Film Festival’s beloved sidebar turns twenty this year, no longer being a cinematic teenager means celebrating those who have left us in this world, but also looking ahead to some groundbreaking cinema.

The twentieth edition of Giornate degli Autori will run this year from August 30th to September 9th, 2023, concurrently with the Venice Film Festival. This will be the first Giornate without Andrea Purgatori, the sidebar’s late President, and without Citto Maselli, who co-founded the showcase in 2004, with Emidio Greco. Under the artistic direction of Gaia Furrer, the 2023 lineup features 10 films in competition, 7 special events in the official selection, 8 titles in Venetian Nights, a special day-long event devoted to Jean-Marc Vallée and the cinema of Québec, and 4 Special Screenings in the Sala Laguna at the Casa degli Autori. The Giornate’s' main venue will also be hosting a series of events and talks arranged with Isola Edipo with the support of the filmmakers’ associations, as well as an exhibition of period film posters inspired by the project ‘100+1: cento film e un Paese, l’Italia’, the brainchild of Fabio Ferzetti with the collaboration of Giuliana Gamba.

Andrea Purgatori is the late journalist, writer and TV presenter who passed away earlier last week, after a short illness which took him away at the young age of 70. Purgatori, to Italian audiences is best known for hosting Atlantide, a show which aired every week and presented well known cases and world events through a slightly different, read: truthful POV. Most recently, he appeared on the Netflix special series Vatican Girl: The Disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi. Purgatori also served as president of the Italian branch of Greenpeace until 2020.

Among the films just announced in the Giornate lineup this morning, are the opening film for this year’s edition Los océanos son los verdaderos continentes. This is the feature directorial debut by Milanese filmmaker Tommaso Santambrogio, a Cuban-Italian co-production. It is set entirely in Cuba and conveys all the vitality and melancholy of the island nation today, its hopes and lost dreams, through a story touching three generations.

As I personally adore Isabelle Huppert, the next title is a no brainers. French filmmaker Élise Girard moves to Japan for her third feature film, Sidonie au Japon. Does one really need to go to the ends of the earth to find oneself? For Sidonie, magnificently portrayed by Isabelle Huppert, that would appear to be in the case. In a strange, remote place, continuously shifting back and forth between past and present, between ghosts and real people, the woman finds the meaning and identity she had lost.

Not sure how I feel about Dutch newcomer Stefanie Kolk’s feature Melk, also a first feature, which deals with a mother’s useless effort of giving her stillborn child milk. I’m getting a bit tired of these kinds of women’s stories, but will probably give the film a try.

With Pablo Larrain offering his own vision of a vampire in the main Venice Competition, this next title should feel like a perfect bookend to view as a diptych. Canada’s Ariane Louis-Seize represents an independent genre cinema and in Vampire humaniste cherche suicidaire consentant, she presents a young female vampire whose empathy could well kill her. She refuses to nourish herself since it means killing, thus overturning the rule written by those who feel entitled to dominate those around them.

Afef Ben Mahmoud’s and Khalil Benkirane’s Backstage (pictured in the header above) is a film near and dear to my heart. I’ve followed the path of the filmmakers from its inception and even got to watch a short excerpt from the film in Doha, during the DFI’s Qumra. It is described in the Giornate press release as a “sort of dancing road movie with marvelous choreography by Belgian-Moroccan Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui,” where the directors step into the lives of a dance troupe and reveal its internal dynamics: its little vendettas and settling of scores, its secrets and confessions. It is one of only a couple of “Arab” titles in the whole festival — Ben Mahmoud is a movie star from Tunisia and Benkirane a Moroccan filmmaker — and it will be a gem.

The other “MENA” title belongs to Bye Bye Tiberias, a sophomore film by Lina Soualem featuring Palestinian actress Hiam Abbass. In the documentary Soualem travels back in time to meet her own mother, who happens to be Abbass, and all the other women that make up a large family in Palestine in the last century — a time of war, hopes, wrongs, diasporas, and that proud desire to stay in Palestine to take a stand for being there. At a time when Palestinian cinema is being ignored by major festivals, this is a step in the right direction.

Another first feature Coup! by the Americans Austin Stark and Joseph Schuman, has been chosen to close the Giornate’s lineup. The film stars Peter Sarsgaard, along with Billy Magnussen, Sarah Gadon, Skye Marshall, Faran Tahir, Katherine Nielsen and Fisher Stevens. In it, a small group is holed up in a villa in 1918 to protect itself from the Spanish flu, but not from each other: they are prey to all the worst human instincts, like selfishness, ambition, deceit, plotting behind other’s backs, betrayal. Will we ever be able to become better people?

This time around, the two films belonging to the Miu Miu Women’s Tales are number 25 Ojo Dos Veces Boca (Eye Two Times Mouth) by the Mexican Lila Avilés, with Akemi Endo, Alan Pingarron and Irene Akiko, and also number 26 Stane by the Croatian Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović.

“The real strength of Giornate,” declared Delegate Giorgio Gosetti, “has always been the rich variety of offerings and the convivial, friendly and inclusive spirit of the event, its support of courageous and independent talent going hand in hand with moments that bring that talent together, in a dialogue between creative voices. Andrea Purgatori made these precious facets of Giornate his own and nourished them with his humanity, his marvelous, playful smile, and his curiosity and passion for discovering new talent. I wish to thank the Board of Directors and Francesco Ranieri Martinotti for honoring his legacy and supporting Giornate as it builds on its achievements so far. The 20th edition of Giornate aims to fly the flag of a contemporary cinema that both looks to the new and preserves memory of its past. The “golden triangle” between the Villa where we started out, twenty years ago, the Casa degli Autori with Sala Laguna and Isola Edipo – Andrea’s, and Giornate’s, place in the heart – is the living image of our cultural manifesto and a reality that makes our program unique.”

For the complete line up, check out the Giornate degli Autori website.

Images courtesy of the filmmakers, used with permission.