Giornate 2023: numbers, venues, and guests

Giornate degli Autori, along with ANAC and 100autori, the associations behind the event, are celebrating its 20th edition with a rich and varied program with a plethora of international film personalities in attendance, in Venice to present their films, meet with festival audiences, and take part in press events.

Over 1,200 titles were viewed by Giornate programmers in the last year; 10 films are in the running for the 2023 GdA Director’s Award and the People’s Choice Award; and the 7 special events include narrative features, documentaries, and a short film. Venetian Nights partners with Isola Edipo to bring 8 titles to the big screen, while 5 special screenings will be held, as always, in Sala Laguna. Making for a grand total of 33 films by budding filmmakers and established auteurs, and of these, 14 were directed (and written, or co-written) by women filmmakers; 7 address or touch on LGBTQ+ themes; (3 of which are also vying for the Queer Lion Award); and 6 European titles will be competing for the Europa Cinemas Label. At the national level, there are 28 countries from the world over represented on the Giornate lineup for its 20th time around, with 18 films produced in Italy, 9 of which are co-produced with other countries. Lastly, there are 26 events across the board at Venice that fly the Giornate degli Autori flag.

The films in the Official Selection – Competition, along with the Special Events and the two new shorts joining the Miu Miu Women’s Tales collection, will be screened, as always, in the Sala Perla (Palazzo del Casinò), with the screenings open to the festival public and Venice Film Festival badgeholders. The historic screening theater located in the Palazzo del Casinò, the nerve center of the Venice Film Festival, will also host the Giornate degli Autori awards ceremony as well as the ceremony at which Luca Guadagnino will be handed the SIAE Andrea Purgatori Lifetime Achievement Award, while Alessandro Roia will receive the SIAE Creative Talent Award.

The Casa degli Autori (via Pietro Buratti 1) remains the venue of choice for filmmakers, actors, journalists, audiovisual professionals, and photographers, all of whom are welcome to conduct their activities there and also take part in networking and other events. Inside the Casa degli Autori, visitors will find the Sala Laguna, reopened on the Lido thanks to the joint efforts of Giornate degli Autori, Edipo Re, and the Vicariato di San Marco; this year as last, it hosts the Venetian Nights program, co-arranged with Isola Edipo, but also masterclasses, presentations, and special screenings, all of which are free of charge, on a first-come, first-served basis. The Casa degli Autori also holds the Media Room and the Gazebo area, two state-of-the-art spaces equipped to host press activities, talks, and official photocalls for Giornate degli Autori, as well as the live-streamed deliberations of Giornate’s young 27 Times Cinema jury members.

The press previews of the films on the Official Selection and repeat screenings for Giornate audiences will be held in both Sala Perla and the Sala Corinto(Via Falier 4, Lido di Venezia), and may be reserved on the Venice Biennale platform, while screenings which require ticket purchases will unspool at the Cinema Rossini in Venice and the Cinema Candiani in Mestre.

Just a stone’s throw away from the Casa degli Autori, on the Riva di Corinto (at the corner of via Falier), are the Food Court and the Isola Edipo conference venue, where Giornate degli Autori will be hosting meetings between industry professionals, festival guests, and international journalists. An added plus is the most beautiful sunset imaginable on display!

Other unmissable events take place at the l’Hotel Excelsior, in the Veneto Region Space, and at the Italian Pavilion and the Fondazione Ente dello spettacolo Space: they include Giornate’s time-honored showcase celebrating women’s creativity – Miu Miu Women’s Tales – and the Filmmakers’ Declaration, its key players the Italian and French filmmakers’ associations, ANAC, 100autori, Wgi, Arp and Srf.

Thanks to the collaboration with MYmovies, Giornate degli Autori’s virtual screening venue is back, ready to give Italian audiences the chance to see some of the films on the Giornate lineup this year, including Backstage by Afef Ben Mahmoud and Khalil Benkirane (Morocco, Tunisia, 2023, 102’), Kanata no uta (Following the Sound) by Kyoshi Sugita (Japan, 2023, 84’), 21 Days Until the End of the World by Teona Strugar Mitevska (North Macedonia, 2023, 78’), and Casablanca by Adriano Valerio (France, Italy, 2023, 63’). All of the above films will be available for 72 hours after their official premiere, for up to a total of 1,000 viewers.

Competition
BACKSTAGE Khalil Benkirane (director) Afef Ben Mahmoud (director), Hajiba Fahmy (cast), Nassim Baddag (cast), Sondos Belhassen (cast), Sofiane Ouissi (cast), Salima Abdel-Wahab (cast), Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui (cast)
COUP! (closing film, out of competition) Austin Stark (director), Joseph Schuman (director), Peter Sarsgaard (cast), Billy Magnussen (cast)
FOLLOWING THE SOUND Kyoshi Sugita (director), An Ogawa (cast), Yuko Nakamura (cast), Chika Araki (cast)
LOS OCÉANOS SON LOS VERDADEROS CONTINENTES Tommaso Santambrogio (director), Alexander Diego
(cast), Edith Ybarra (cast)
MELK Stefanie Kolk (director), Frieda Barnhard (cast), Aleksej Ovsiannikov (cast), Jules* Elting (cast)
QUITTER LA NUIT Delphine Girard (director), Selma Alaoui (cast), Guillaume Duhesme (cast), Adèle Wismes (cast), Guillame Tranchant (cast)
SIDONIE AU JAPON Élise Girard (director), Isabelle Huppert (cast), August Diehl (cast)
SOBRE TODO DE NOCHE Víctor Iriarte (director), Lola Dueñas (cast), Ana Torrent (cast), Manuel Egozkue (cast)
THE SUMMER WITH CARMEN Zacharias Mavroeidis (director), Yorgos Tsiantoulas (cast), Andreas Lampropoulos (cast), Roubini Vasilakopoulou (cast)
VAMPIRE HUMANISTE CHERCHE SUICIDAIRE CONSENTANT Ariane Louis-Seize (director), Sara Montpetit (cast) Félix-Antoine Bénard (cast), Sophie Cadieux (cast), Noémie O’Farrell, (cast)
SNOW IN MIDSUMMER Chong Keat Aun (director), Wan Fang (cast)

Special Events
21 DAYS UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD Teona Strugar Mitevska (director)
THE SUN WILL RISE Ayat Najafi (director)
BYE BYE TIBERIAS Lina Soualem (director), Hiam Abbass (cast), Mouna Soualem (cast)
L’AVAMPOSTO Edoardo Morabito (director)
L’EXPÉRIENCE ZOLA Gianluca Matarrese (director), Anne Barbot (cast), Benoît Dallongeville (cast)
PHOTOPHOBIA Ivan Ostrochovský (director), Pavol Pekarčík (director), Nikita Tyshchenko (interprete), Viktoriia Mats (interprete), Oleksandr Mats (interprete), Tetiana Volodymyrivna Syrbu (interprete)
THIS IS HOW A CHILD BECOMES A POET Céline Sciamma (director), Chiara Civello (music composer)

Venetian Nights
ACROSS Irene Dorigotti (director)
ANNA Marco Amenta (director), Rose Aste (cast)
CASABLANCA Adriano Valerio (director)
CON LA GRAZIA DI UN DIO Alessandro Roia (director), Tommaso Ragno (cast), Maya Sansa (cast)
FRAMMENTI DI UN PERCORSO AMOROSO Chloé Barreau (director)
L’INVENZIONE DELLA NEVE Vittorio Moroni (director), Elena Gigliotti (cast)
LE MIE POESIE NON CAMBIERANNO IL MONDO Annalena Benini (director), Francesco Piccolo (director)
SEMIDEI Fabio Mollo (director), Alessandra Cataleta (director)

Special Screenings
IL POPOLO DELLE DONNE Yuri Ancarani (director), Marina Valcarenghi (screenwriter)
ITALO CALVINO, LO SCRITTORE SUGLI ALBERI Duccio Chiarini (director)
NINA DEI LUPI Antonio Pisu (director), Sergio Rubini (cast), Sandra Ceccarelli (cast), Sara Ciocca (cast), Alessandro Bertante (writer), Tiziana Foschi (cast), Caterina Gabanella (cast), Davide Silvestri (cast)
PAROLA AI GIOVANI Angelo Bozzolini (director), Giovanni Caccamo (co-screenwriter), Salvatore Esposito (cast)

Events, awards and masterclasses
Monia Chokri (actress and director), Enzo D’Alò (director), Laura Delli Colli (President of SNGCI – Nastri d’Argento), Elisa Ercoli (President of Differenza Donna), Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović (director), Donatella Finocchiaro (actress), Giuliana Gamba (Council member of ANAC), Luca Guadagnino (director), Morzaniel Ɨramari (director), Penny Martin (journalist), Francesca Romana Massaro (Vicepresident WGI), Stefano Muroni (President of Ferrara la Città del Cinema), Shirin Neshat (actress), Jetsun Pema (sister of Tibetan Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso), Pina Picierno (Vicepresident of European Parliament), Paola Randi (director and screenwriter, Vicepresident of 100autori), Evelyn Regner (Vincepresident of European Parlament), João Pedro Rodrigues (director), Daniela Scattolin (actress), Luca Siano (Director of Archivio Sandro Simeoni), Kasia Smutniak (actress), Cinzia Spanò (President of Amleta), Nichi Vendola (journalist).