Official Selections for Giornate Degli Autori ( Venice Days)
Alienation from Milko Lazarov (first work)
With Christos Stergioglou, Maria Jikich, Ovanes Torosyan, Iva Ognyanova
Bulgaria, World Premier
A dark fairy tale, primordial and contemporary. A middle-aged man passes the border between Greece and Bulgaria looking for a child to illegally adopt. The baby is yet unborn but will come into the world during a storm, in a mountain cave that the man has prepared.
LA BELLE VIE from Jean Denizot – first work
With Nicolas Bouchaud, Zacharie Chasseriaud, Jules Pélissier
Jean-Philippe Ecoffey, Maya Sansa, Solène Rigot
France, world premier
Inspired by a true story that shocked France. As the film starts, Yves has been living on the run from the police for ten years, holding his two (willing) sons hostage.
BETHLEHEM from Yuval Adler – first work
With Shadi Mar’i, Tzachi Halevy, Hitham Omari, Tarek Copti
Israel, world premier
The West Bank today: where truth and falsehoods get confused and everyone believes that they are fighting for right. Sanfur is the younger brother of Ibrahim, a highly wanted Palestinian militant. Razi, determined to capture or assassinate Ibrahim, recruited Sanfur when he was just 15, investing all his energy in the kid and developing a very intimate almost fatherly relationship with him.
GERONTOPHILIA from Bruce LaBruce
With Walter Borden, Pier-Gabriel Lajoie, Katie Boland, Marie-Hélène Thibault
Canada, world premier
Lake is 18 and has a messed up mom that is always following a man, a very unconventional boyfriend. Working at a pool and then a nursing home, he becomes attracted to one of the residents.
KILL YOUR DARLINGS from John Krokidas – first work
With Daniel Radcliffe, Dane DeHaan, Michael C. Hall, Ben Foster,
Jack Huston, Elizabeth Olsen, Jennifer Jason Leigh
USA
The young lives of the beat icons:Ginsberg, Kerouac & Burroughs.
KOKSUZ (NOBODY´S HOME) feom Deniz Akçay Katıksız – first work
With Ahu Türkpençe, Lale Başar, Savaş Alp Başar
Sekvan Serinkaya, Mihriban Er, Melis Ebeler
Turkey
After her husband´s death, Nurcan feels her life is over. And after her father´s death, young Feride has to take care of her entire family, including her two younger brothers: İlker, proud and rebellious, and the vulnerable Özge. The only way out, for a young girl with too great a burden on her shoulders, seems to be marriage to Gülağa. “This is the story,” says the filmmaker, on her feature directorial debut, “of a group of people who don´t embrace their own real roles in life, but struggle to live up to the roles that others have mapped out for them.”
MAY IN THE SUMMER from Cherien Dabis
With Hiam Abbass, James Garson Chick, Cherien Dabis
USA/Qatar/Jordan,
Interrupting her successful career in Manhattan, May returns to Amman to arrange her wedding, and lands smack in the middle of a dysfunctional family crisis. Her mother, a born-again Christian, disapproves of her marriage to a Muslim; her father barely seems to care at all; no one cares about May´s happiness.
LA MIA CLASSE from Daniele Gaglianone
With Valerio Mastandrea
Italia, world premier
Reality film, set in Rome´s multiethnic Pigneto area, it tells the collective story of a class made up of immigrants learning Italian. The ingredients are the individual life stories of the students and their teacher as well, for a true story in a rather unconventional classroom setting. Or is it a true story? It is for the classmates, with their own voices and memories; it´s true at a different level for the actor Valerio Mastandrea who plays their teacher; and for the director and crew who weave in and out of the scene, in an interplay between real experiences and the search for truth in a fictional form, which emerges as the real narrative heart of this film, more real than reality itself.
LA RECONSTRUCCION from Juan Taratuto
With Diego Peretti, Claudia Fontán, Alfredo Casero,
Maria Casali, Eugenia Aguilar y Ariel Pérez
Argentina
Eduardo’s solitary life seems untouched by human emotion. He’s a good worker with an obsessive personality who closes himself off in his room in his free time until one day he agrees to help an old friend and his family.
RIGOR MORTIS from Juno Mak – first work
With Kara Hui, Siu-hou Chin, Richard Ng
Hong Kong, world premier
In futuristic Hong Kong, invaded and deserted, a successful actor confronts his destiny.
SIDDHARTH from Richie Mehta
Con Rajesh Tailang, Tannishtha Chatterjee, Anurag Arora,
Shobha Sharma Jassi, Geeta Agarwal Sharma, Naseeruddin Shah
India/Canada, world premier
Mahendra works on street corners as a chain-wallah (a zipper-fixer), while his wife Suman stays at home with their two young children, twelve-year-old Siddharth and his sister. To contribute to the family budget, the boy is sent far away from home, from New Dehli to Ludhiana, where a relative has a job for him and a place to sleep. It seems like a dream come true to his father, until he realises that his son has vanished into thin air: kidnapped, perhaps, or dead. Mahendra learns how confusing the world beyond his front door really is, but that doesn´t stop him from stubbornly seeking Siddharth all over India, .
TRAITORS from Sean Gullette, first work
With Chaimae Ben Acha, Soufia Issami, Mourade Zeguindi,
Driss Roukhe, Saleh Bensaleh
Morocco, USA, world premier
The double life of Malika, a conservatively-dressed student and call-centre worker by day, and the leader of an all-girl punk band by night.
Special Event:
JULIA from J. Jackie Baier first work
Germany/Lituania, world premier
What drives a boy to leave home and abandon his country, Lithuania, to end up as a cross-dressing prostitute?
VENEZIA SALVA from Serena Nono
With David Riondino, Nicola Golea, Domenico Palazzo,
Matteo Parrinello, Roxana Kenjeeva, Vincenza Petrella
Italy, world premier
Loosely based on the book by Simone Weil.
In participation with the Tribeca Film Festival:
LENNY COOKE from Benny Safdie, Joshua Safdie
USA prima
The story of Lenny Cooke, who in 2001 wa the most promising basketball player, some say better than Le Bron James.
Special Screening
L´ARBITRO from Paolo Zucca – first work
with Stefano Accorsi, Geppi Cucciari,
Jacopo Cullin, Marco Messeri, Benito Urgu,
Francesco Pannofino, Alessio Di Clemente
Italy, Argentina, world premier
The rise and fall of a corrupt referee. The timeless clash between two rival teams at the bottom of the rankings.
Ending film- Special Screening
TRES BODAS DE MAS from Javier Ruiz Caldera
With Inma Cuesta, Martiño Rivas, María Botto, Rossy de Palma
Spain, World Premier
A comedy:What’s worse than being invited to your ex-fiance’s wedding? Surely receiving three in the same month.
I Love Italian Everything 