Trying always to mix an auteur cinema with a commercial flavor, the 72nd Venice Film Festival (September 2 – 12) does so, by bringing in Lido high-profile filmmakers along with first-time international talents. 

With 16 directors (out of 21 whose films have been selected) participating in the festival’s Competition for the first time, this year΄s Venezia 72 competition programme (world premieres), has included the names of Marco Bellochio, Laurie Anderson, Atom Egoyan, Cary Fukunaga, Amos Gitai, Charlie Kaufman, Aleksandr Sokurov and Jerzy Skolimowski. Among them, a Turkish filmmaker, Emin Alper with Frenzy (Turkey/France/Qatar, 2015).

The Venezia 72 Jury, will be presided by Alfonso Cuarón, who will be accompanied by writer, screenwriter and director Emmanuel Carrère, directors Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Pawel Pawlikowski, Francesco Munzi, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Lynne Ramsay, and actresses Diane Kruger and Elizabeth Banks.

The Orizzonti international competition programme, will present films that represent the latest aesthetic and expressive trends in international cinema. Yorgos Zois΄ feature debut Interruption (Greece/France/Croatia, 2015) is among the films selected and will be also competing for the Lion of the Future “Luigi De Laurentiis” Venice Award for a Debut Film. Additionaly, the programme΄s shorts selection will screen Backyards by Ivan Salatic (Montenegro, 2015, 20΄) and Belladonna by Dubravka Turic (Croatia, 2015, 18΄).

President of the Orizzonti Jury section will be filmmaker Jonathan Demme, with director and screenwriter Alix Delaporte, actress Paz Vega, director Fruit Chan and actress Anita Caprioli completing the programme΄s Jury.

The 72nd edition of the festival will be opened by an Out of Competition film, Baltasar Kormákur΄s Everest. The section, which includes feature and documentary films, promises a powerful programme, with filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese (with a short film), Frederick Wiseman, Tsai Ming-Liang, Sergei Loznitsa, Noah Baumbach, Arturo Ripstein, Daniel Alfredson and Bertrand Tavernier, who will be honored with the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement.

 

Tavernier has been given (for the first time at the Venice) carte blanche to select some rare, forgotten or underestimated films for the Venice Classics section. Legends such as Kurosawa, Fellini, Ejzenstein, Lubitch, Chabrol, Melville and many others next to Yilmaz Guney΄s Hope (Turkey, 1970), best Turkish film ever in many polls.

Venice runs annualy two independent and parallel sections, the International Critics’ Week and Venice Days. International Critics’ Week will feature a series of 7 debut films in competition. Among them we find Motherland by Senem Tuzen (Turkey/Greece, 2015) and The Journey by Adriano Valerio (Italy/Romania/Bulgaria/FYROM, 2015), two titles which, along with Yorgos Zois΄ Interruption (Orizzonti programme) compete for the Lion of the Future “Luigi De Laurentiis” Venice Award for a Debut Film, next to a number of international productions. 

Venice Days, the second parallel programme, is presenting 12 films promoted by the Italian Association of Film-makers (ANAC) and by 100 Autori, including two familiar by now Balkan titles, both contenders for the LUX Prize 2015, Mustang by Deniz Gamze Erguven (France/Germany/Turkey, 2015) and The Lesson by Kristina Grozeva & Petar Valchanov (Bulgaria/Greece, 2014).

Commenting the 2015 selection, festival director Alberto Barbera stated: “The Film Festival’s program is a freeze-frame that lets us observe - from a bit closer in and with opportune discernment - some of the elements and subjects that might become the lodestar of this new constellation. We who have selected and isolated them from their context are aware that some might become part of a consolidated and mainstream current, while others will be swept away by the inexorable tide before someone has the time and the means to help them grow and thrive.”

Concluding, we should mention the Sala Web initiative, which will return at the Mostra, in collaboration with Festival Scope, the online platform for film professionals. Sala Web will serve as a parallel online showcase for films officially selected at the Orizzonti Competition and Biennale College. These films will be available for streaming during a full 5 days, on the same day as their world premiere on the Lido.