Someone flew over Autori’s nest

Same old Lido, brand-new nest for the 18th annual Giornate degli Autori. It’s been a year to remember, indeed: legal age brought new gains, renewed successes, some adjustments here and there, and a new home for Giornate. The independent sidebar of the Venice Film Festival, promoted by ANAC and 100autori, turned Via Buratti 1 into its new headquarters. It holds the Sala Laguna, our cool new venue, restored and reinvented by Giornate and Isola Edipo, once more a movie theater for Venetians as well as the place to catch Giornate 2022.

Legions of directors, screenwriters, actors, journalists and film professionals flocked to Giornate’s new nest, which hosted screenings, debates, master classes, and art exhibitions (from “Portraits of Cinema” by Antonietta De Lillo to the comics in the touring group show “Free Hugs”).

Among those who crossed the threshold over the two weeks in Venice were Steve McQueen, Virginie Efira, Ornella Vanoni, Michael Winterbottom, Sabina Guzzanti, Alessandro Gassmann, Massimiliano Gallo, Marta Nieto, Patricia Allison, Isabel Sandoval, Kaouther Ben Hania, Marina Confalone, Michele Riondino, Francesco Lettieri, Andrea Carpenzano, Zerocalcare, Matteo Rovere, Stefano Sardo, Giovanna Taviani, Elisa Fuksas, Elisabetta Sgarbi, Gianni Canova, Andrea Segre, Ivano De Matteo, Ali Suliman, Sarah Gadon, Alessandro Haber, Guido Caprino, and Filippo Timi. Plus many others, between guests and stars of the films in competition, special events, and Venetian Nights, the showcase co-curated by Gaia Furrer, artistic director of Giornate, and Silvia Jop, artistic director of Isola Edipo. At Riva Corinto, between The Box and the Isola Edipo stage, a program of presentations, performances and concerts unfolded (like the sounds of Extraliscio and Donpasta, or Danilo Rea’s piano and Umberto Contarello’s script) in a setting where conviviality was the rule and the magic skyline of Venice beckoned.

“I like to think that managing to bring filmmakers and their casts to the Lido in such a difficult year, with them flying in from different countries, from afar as well as near,” says Gaia Furrer, artistic director of Giornate, “is the sign of a rebirth for the entire film industry. In presenting their latest efforts, the filmmakers reiterated their desire to keep fighting to change the world. Their often quite personal films, which addressed politics and relationships, abuse and fear, speak to us all and make themselves heard, for all of us. These are the independent filmmakers, men and women, whom Giornate strives to support, and their presence on the Lido is further proof that the need for dialogue is keenly felt and is more and more essential, so that cinema and its venues can continue to exist and welcome ideas and individuals, and criticism as well as applause.”

“Giornate is pleased to report that audience turnout was high once again,” declares Giorgio Gosetti, Giornate’s delegate general, “at both the Sala Perla, the traditional venue for screenings of films in the Official Selection – sixteen titles this year – and in the new Sala Laguna, where twenty more titles were screened. In addition, the superb Teatro Goldoni hosted a screening of three films on one Venetian afternoon, during which we discussed inclusivity and dreams, Winterbottom and Fellini, and did so with Alessandro Haber, Michele Riondino, and many others. And with our virtual screening space on MYmovies, as well as the fourteen films on our lineup available online on the Biennale Channel, our dream of having anyone all over Italy be able to follow our program and fly, if remotely, to the Lido, came true. Lastly, there’s our new ‘nest’ with the view of the Venetian lagoon, which Giornate, now ‘of legal age’, chose to launch a new project, that of providing a culture factory for filmmakers the world over, media, and industry professionals, to feel at home while embarking on new endeavors.”

The numbers bear out the success of this edition: 12,000 photographs taken, 30 hours of video footage, over 11,000 likes on Facebook, 280,000 page views and 30,000 interactions on Facebook over ten days, 70,000 page views on YouTube, 137,000 accounts reached on Instagram, and 130,000 page views on the Giornate website; plus 10,000 attending at the Biennale venues, 6,000 viewers on MYmovies, and 1,500 in attendance at the Sala Laguna and Teatro Goldoni.

And, naturally, the success of the winning films:

The Romanian film Imaculat by Monica Stan and George Chiper-Lillemark, was the winner of the GdA Director’s Award, the official Giornate award assigned by young European film enthusiasts in the 27 Times Cinema program, headed this year by two Bulgarian directors, Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova. The two women filmmakers also honored Shen Kong by Chinese director Chen Guan with a Special Mention.

Private Desert by Aly Muritiba (Brazil, 2021) received the BNL People’s Choice Award assigned by the Sala Perla audiences.

Californie won the Label assigned by Europa Cinemas. And its writers Alessandro Cassigoli, Casey Kauffman, and Vanessa Picciarelli received a Special Mention for screenwriting from BNL, which is supporting screenwriters with a €2,000 grant for the first time this year.

The documentary Senza fine by Elisa Fuksas and the film Lovely Boy were the winners of this year’s two SIAE awards for Creative Talent.

And on that note, Giornate degli Autori invites you back next year for another, utterly lovely round of events on the Lido!