Films directed by women dominate the Venice Film Festival’s independently run Giornate Degli Autori, which has unveiled a lineup full of first works and special events including “Peaches Goes Bananas,” French filmmaker Marie Losier’s tribute to iconic Canadian electropop provocateur Peaches.
Shot over the course of 17 years, “Peaches Goes Bananas” provides an intimate portrait of the former schoolteacher, who during the 1980s became a queer feminist icon, breaking taboos and “transforming her body into art,” as the doc’s synopsis puts it.
The competition of the Giornate – which is also known as Venice Days – comprises 10 world premieres, six of which are first works, within a selection that artistic director Gaia Furrer described in her notes as “rigorous” and “stylistically eclectic.”
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Furrer underlined that 16 out of the section’s 25 titles are directed by women, a fact she called significant “because many of them made difficult works while contending with often unfavourable situations and still very solid gender barriers,” she said.
The Venice Days competition also includes “Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass,” the third feature by London-based stop-frame animation twins The Quay Brothers (Stephen and Timothy). It’s a tale told through puppet animation and live-action, inspired by a book of the same title by Bruno Schulz involving a ghostly train journey that transports a man to visit his dying father in a sanatorium at the edge of a mythic forest. The Match Factory is handling sales.
Dutch director Jan-Willem van Ewijk, whose epic “Atlantic” went to Toronto, is also in competition with psychological thriller “Alpha,” which revolves around a tormented father-son relationship and is set in the Swiss Alps.
Standout first works include atmospheric French drama “The Book of Joy” by Camille Lugan, a former AD to Jacques Audiard, with a cast comprising Asia Argento and Raphaël Thiéry (“The Dreamer”); Iranian director Shahab Fotouhi’s Tehran-set relationship drama “Boomerang”; and the section’s out-of-competition closer “Basileia” by Isabella Torre, which was developed in the Sundance lab and produced by Jonas Carpignano. “Basileia” is about an archaeologist who, while exploring a tomb in Southern Italy’s rugged Aspromonte mountains, awakens ancient presences. The cast includes Angela Fontana (“Indivisibili”) and Danish American actor Elliott Crosset Hove (“Godland”).
Besides “Peaches Goes Bananas,” Venice Days special events include Federica Di Giacomo’s “Open Couple,” a farce about sexual politics in marriage based on a play by Dario Fo, the Nobel Prize-winning Italian playwright, and his wife Franca Rame.
Shorts by Malaysian director Tan Chi Mui (“Barbarian Invasion”) and Argentine director-producerLaura Citarella (“Trenque Lauquen”) will unspool as part of the Prada-commissioned Miu Miu Women’s Tales, a series of short films directed by women.
The 21st edition of Venice Days will run Aug. 28-Sept. 7 in tandem with the official Venice Film Festival selection. See the full lineup below.
IN COMPETITION
“Alpha,” Jan-Willem van Erik
“The Antique,” Russian Glurjidze
“Boomerang,” Shahab Fotouhi
“Manas,” Marianna Brennand
“Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass,” Stephen and Timothy Quay
“The Book of Joy,” Camille Lugan
“Super Happy Forever,” Kohei Igarashi
“Sugar Island,” Johanné Gómez Terrero
“Taxi Monamour,” Ciro De Caro
“To Kill a Mongolian Horse,” Xiaoxuan Jiang
OUT OF COMPETITION
“Basileia,” Isabella Torre
SPECIAL EVENTS
“Open Couple,” Federica Di Giacomo
“Soul of the Desert,” MónicaTaboada-Tapia
“Kora,” Cláudia Varejão
“Possibility of Paradise,” Mladen Kovačević
“Peaches Goes Bananas,” Marie Losier
“Sudan, Remember Us,” Hind Meddeb
WOMEN’S TALES PROJECT (shorts), in collaboration with Prada’s Miu Miu Label
“I Am the Beauty of Your Beauty, I Am the Fear of Your Fear,” Chui Mui Tan
“The Miu Miu Affaire,” Laura Citarella
