The 18th edition of Giornate degli Autori will unspool during the Venice Film Festival, from September 1st to the 11th, with a pre-opening event on August 31st, thanks to a collaboration with BookCiak, Azione!, SNGCI and Isola Edipo. This independent sidebar created by the Italian filmmakers' associations (ANAC and 100autori), under Giornate president Andrea Purgatori, will feature a competition lineup of 10 feature films and 6 special events selected by Artistic Director Gaia Furrer and screened in the Sala Perla at the Casinò of Venice, in an accord with the Venice Film Festival. It also offers a showcase of independent films made in Italy in the section Venetian Nights (for the occasion, Giornate degli Autori and the social enterprise Edipo Re are using a historic cinema on the Lido, as of this year dubbed the Sala Laguna, as its screening venue, thanks to a collaboration with St. Anthony's parish and the Patriarch of Venice). Giornate is also returning to the center of Venice for a day-long event at the Teatro Goldoni, organized jointly with Isola Edipo and featuring the world premieres of three journeys into the Self (Fellini e l'ombra, by Catherine McGilvray), the Fairy Tale (I nostri fantasmi, by Alessandro Capitani), and Bearing Witness, which will culminate in a talk with five spokespeople for inclusion, the directors behind the anthology film Isolation; Italy's Michele Placido, Germany's Julia von Heinz, Belgium's Jaco Van Dormael, France's Oliver Guerpillon, and England's Michael Winterbottom.

"Giornate degli Autori is back this year," says Andrea Purgatori, "with the curiosity and the passion that has distinguished us from the start. With a lineup put together by Gaia Furrer with her usual flair, as she surveys the new forms of film coming out of over three continents. With films and documentaries that will get talked about, heatedly, at times; a jury headed by two female film personalities, for the first time, and acting as one; and lastly, a space all of our own, an investment in our future by Giornate and General Delegate Giorgio Gosetti, accompanied by Isola Edipo: the Sala Laguna. It certainly wasn't easy to make all this come together, but it never has been, ever since the start of this adventure 18 years ago.  I am confident that it's a challenge that Giornate, together with ANAC and 100autori, the backbone of our event, will tackle with an eye to our audiences, first and foremost."

The structure of Giornate degli Autori 2021 vibrant, magmatic, and diversified, and that goes for both its venues and the forms it takes to represent cinema, present and the future was conceived to inhabit the new headquarters, the Casa degli Autori, by General Delegate Giorgio Gosetti and Artistic Director Gaia Furrer, who declares: "After so many years at the Villa degli Autori, we seized on this special anniversary of ours to "take flight", as reflected metaphorically in our poster this year: an empty nest that represents both our point of departure, the place we are leaving behind, and the new adventure-in-progress, which starts with our big gamble in moving to the new Sala Laguna, which hosts the Spazio Incontri,  Giornate's "secret garden", the venue of choice for talks and meetings and other professional activities, plus an area devoted exclusively to the national and international media, and the Giornate offices themselves. It's a new meeting place that we invite you to visit and experience during the Festival and bask in our traditional hospitality, Giornate's trademark since its inception."

This unusual and ambitious gamble of Giornate's, in ‘moving house', could never have become a reality without the help of another vibrant and visionary Venetian institution, Isola Edipo, the cultural rendez-vous for youthful festivalgoers attending all sections of the Venice Film Festival. Moreover, since 2004, Giornate has grown largely thanks to a loyal collaboration with the Venice Biennale and the Festival organizers, and has become independent due to the firm support of key public institutions such as the Ministry of Culture's General Directorate for Cinema, and the European Parliament with its 27 Times Cinema program; as well as creative and dynamic partners including SIAE, Miu Miu, and BNL, private sponsors and trade associations.

"This year, I take it as a very good sign," confides Giorgio Gosetti, "that the Biennale chose to split between us and the International Critics' Week the tribute to a major Italian film figure such as Citto Maselli, as well as the fascinating exhibition of photographs by Antonietta De Lillo, Portraits of Cinema: shots taken between 1981 and 1982, which take viewers back, collectively, to the refoundation of the Venice Film Festival forty years ago, under Carlo Lizzani. We are equally grateful to SIAE, the standard-bearer for copyright law for the film industry at Venice as elsewhere, honoring important filmmakers for their original personal takes on the art of cinema. We thank Miu Miu for journeying on with us this year as well, out to discover women's creativity, and for crafting the four unforgettable events at the Veneto Region Space and the Italian Pavilion. Many thanks to BNL, which, starting this year, has chosen to spotlight the art of screenwriting, as seen in our own lineup."

Just as Giornate has decided to dedicate the Sala Laguna to an extraordinary woman screenwriter and director, the late Valentina "Zucco" Pedicini, on September 6th it also wishes to commemorate an equally impressive actor and filmmaker, Libero "Picchio" De Rienzo, another life cut short and a film talent that Italy has lost far too soon, and does so together with his friends and family and the Italian filmmakers' associations.

Giornate turns 18, and the milestone comes with many novelties to announce:

A two-headed jury: the 10 films in the running for the sidebar's only official prize the GdA Director's Award will be weighed and the winner selected by 27 young cinephiles coming from all 27 countries of the EU to take part in the 27 Times Cinema program. The jury is headed (and this is an absolute first) by two Bulgarian women directors and producers: Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova, lauded just days ago at Cannes for their most recent film screened in Un Certain Regard. For 11 days, the dynamic duo will work with the young jurors, dialogue on film and copyright, and take part in the final deliberations (livestreamed on the morning of September 10th), coordinated by Karel Och, director of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival.

Opening with a nod to Venice: Welcome Venice, the new film by Andrea Segre (a revelation exactly 10 years ago, at Giornate, for his Shun Li and the Poet, and this year a key player in the Festival's pre-opening event as well) is the opening film ushering in our Venetian Nights at the Sala Laguna, our unconventional space (the brainchild of Gaia Furrer and Silvia Jop, along with the programming) that returns a historic screening venue, long-forgotten, to the Lido, the Venetians, and film lovers at at large. Thanks to the friendship and generosity of the filmmaker and his producers, the Venetian Nights lineup opens with a potent, universal metaphor devoted to the city of the have-nots.

Valentina Pedicini and Cecilia Mangini: Giornate's pre-opening event on August 31st is reserved for these two very different figures, who shared, nevertheless, a commitment to individuality and documentary filmmaking. The event is arranged jointly with BookCiak, Azione! and SNGCI. In fact, the Sala Laguna, the very heart of the new Casa degli Autori, will be dedicated to a true friend of Giornate and Isola Edipo alike, Valentina Pedicini, while, the same evening, it will host the world premiere of the film Il mondo a scatti, by Paolo Pisanelli and Cecilia Mangini, in memory of the the latter, the greatest documentarian in Italian cinema.

The Venice Film Festival honors Citto Maselli: Giornate degli Autori is delighted to join in on the tribute to master filmmaker Citto Maselli, alongside SNCCI and the Critics' Week, which the Biennale has arranged as a special ceremony on Sunday, September 5th, at the Palazzo del Cinema. The co-founder of our independent sidebar, along with Emidio Greco, Maselli is the soul and symbol of the event, as well as one of Italy's leading filmmakers, a key figure in the revamping of the Biennale in the late 1960s and also a champion of Italian filmmakers' struggles for independence when he headed ANAC, which celebrates its sixtieth anniversary next year.

The exhibitions at Giornate 2021: There are two this year, one of photography and the other comics, and they embody the spirit of our showcase here and now, poised between past and future. Ritratti di cinema: Antonietta De Lillo fotografa la Mostra is a marvelous collection of the shots that the future filmmaker, a young freelance photographer at the time, took in Venice in 1981 and 1982. Now, thanks to the support of the Fondazione CSC and the Film Commission Regione Campania, those photos rekindle memories of an unforgettable era in the Festival's history. In an accord with the Biennale, they will be on display at both the Sala Laguna and the Palazzo del Cinema.

The second exhibition, displayed "virtually" at Venice, is called Free Hughs. Curated by Giulio De Vita who created it for Pordenone's PAFF, with the collaboration of the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Jesi, the show is an evocative display of storyboards on the theme of hugs and embraces the present and future of humankind all designed by today's leading cartoonists in Italy and around the world. The show takes the form of a video installation on the Lido, before going ‘live' in Jesi on September 3rd and then travel to PAFF.

Our talks and the collaboration with Isola Edipo: in keeping with our tradition as a cultural offering that goes well beyond that of a mere showcase of films having their world premieres, once again this year Giornate devotes ample space to meetings and talks that go beneath the surface. The main themes, as of now, are the training of a new generation and its integration into the film and audiovisual industry, on the one hand, and a focus on documentary filmmaking, on the other. Our packed calendar of events and screenings, arranged jointly with Isola Edipo, includes the return of Elisabetta Sgarbi and the band Extraliscio, in La nave sul monte; the anthology film made by the students at Milan's IULM University, Vorrei sparire ma non morire; a tale by Pupi Avati made by Marta Erika Antonioli, Nicola Baraglia and Hilary Tiscione; Daniele De Michele's new visual utopia, Naviganti; the clear skies of the great poet Andrea Zanzotto, evokd by Denis Brotto in his Logos Zanzotto; and lastly, the documentary Benelli su Benelli by Marta Miniucchi, which sends out our 2021 edition with a bang, and a party.

The 27 Times Cinema program: created in 2010, under the aegis of the European Parliament, and jointly organized by Giornate degli Autori, Europa Cinemas and Cineuropa.org, the initiative is a virtual campus that brings together 27 young cinephiles for 11 days. The participants have been selected by exhibitors of quality cinema in all 27 member countries of the EU to first serve on the Giornate jury during the Venice Film Festival, and then go on to become ambassadors for the LUX Audience Award back in their own countries. Thanks to an array of workshops, master classes, talks and social media activities, this young team will get a taste of all aspects of the Festival and feed into a real community than can only grow over the years.

The awards: Since 2014, Giornate has had a single official prize, the GdA Director's Award, assigned to one of the 10 films in competition and carrying a cash prize of €20,000, to be split between the filmmaker and the international distributor of the film. Giornate also hosts the award ceremonies for the BNL People's Choice Award and the Europa Cinemas Label, the winner of which is selected by a jury of European exhibitors. In addition, the first films competing at Giornate are in the running for the Luigi De Laurentiis Award, assigned by the Venice Film Festival to the best debut film in all of its sections.

The official selection: And then, naturally, there are the films themselves, those in competition, out of competition, and the ones in our showcase-in-a-showcase, Venetian Nights, devoted to Italian films. There are 16 titles in the Official Selection of which 10 in competition: 1 closing film out of competition, vying for the BNL People's Choice Award, and 5 special events; 6 first films, 22 countries represented; 18 women filmmakers invited, including the two directors of the shorts for Miu Miu Women's Tales; and 18 Italian films on the Venetian Nights lineup.