Protest is poetry

When does protest become poetry? The answer comes from two outsiders, in terms of both their own film careers and Giornate’s vision of its twentieth edition. One year since their most recent appearances on the Venice Lido – in 2022 Céline Sciamma was the president of the GdA jury, while Teona Strugar Mitevska saw her film The Happiest Man in the World premiere in the Horizons section at the Venice Film Festival – the two women filmmakers are back with two offbeat Special Events.

Two women challenge themselves and the film production industry with highly personal and self-produced films. Both of them retreat to the private sphere, inside the home, to portray what the end feels like.

The French filmmaker has turned out a short film, This Is How a Child Becomes a Poet, inspired by her acquaintance with the poet Patrizia Cavalli. The film is Sciamma’s moving farewell to this artist. Drawing on images from an old 1950s film, to the beat of Kim Novak clapping her hands, Sciamma guides the audience through the home of the late poet, touching on her family photos and trinkets.

The Macedonian director takes a different tack, filming a countdown in daily intervals at the time of the lockdown. Twenty-one separate inspirations make up 21 Days Until the End of the World, in which Mitevska’s world is literally destroyed before being put together again, with the filmmaker’s own fragility, laid out on film, as its starting point.

“21 Days Until the End of the World and This Is How a Child Becomes a Poet,” explains Gaia Furrer, Artistic Director, “are two genuine gifts that Giornate has received from two of the most invaluable voices of European cinema. The perseverance with which these women fight for what is right, through their films, has led to the creation of two works in which the artists seem to step back and reconsider their art, yet the films are a perfect fit for it, sharing with the outside world an inner journey that is lyrical and introspective.”

Céline Sciamma and Teona Stugar Mitevska meet in the Sala Perla in the Palazzo del Casinò on September 6th at 11 a.m., for the screenings of their two films followed by a Q&A with Venice audiences.