Beatrice Fiorentino

Beatrice Fiorentino on Emerging Filmmakers and Collaboration

VERDICT: The General Delegate of the International Critics Week discusses her philosophy for the Venice sidebar.

Like every year, Beatrice Fiorentino will be covering the Venice Film Festival for the Trieste-based daily newspaper Il Piccolo (the three movies she’s most looking forward to are Michael Mann’s Ferrari, David Fincher’s The Killer, and Bertrand Bonello’s La bête).

And, like every year since 2016, much of her attention will actually be devoted to the International Critics Week, the sidebar where she served on Giona Nazzaro’s selection committee, before taking over as General Delegate (i.e., director) starting two years ago with the 2021 edition. As such, she has her finger on the pulse as far as emerging talents are concerned, as curator/programmer, critic and jury member. (Mere weeks before this year’s Venice, she was in Locarno to decide on the prizes for the Cineasti del Presente competition, which focuses on first and second features).

How does she view the current state of young cinema? “I think it’s a very fertile and lively moment in time from a production point of view; this year was a very good one. There’s plenty of vibrant debuts that eschew predictability and have a very specific identity. That is what we need to get out of this slump of averageness, to reconnect with our taste for amazement and freedom.”

This applies to all of the films she and her colleagues selected, with the filmmaker’s personal gaze as the unifying trait: “It’s the strength of the gaze, the image at the core of everything, the wish to observe, to tell stories, and also to take responsibility, to take a stand, to express a point of view. These are all powerful, daring works. You can sense the urgency in wanting to say something about the world, and doing so through the medium of film.”

Is there a particular title that will surprise audiences?  “Le Vourdalak, it’s magnificent and shocking, political and elegant, intriguing, humorous and frightening. And also Hoard, which is at once tender and repulsive, the revelation of a pure, very young talent.”

This year, one of the jury members is Ava Cahen, who’s in charge of the Critics Week in Cannes. When we interviewed her back in May, she said she doesn’t view her section’s relationship with the rest of the festival as a competitive one, because she’s happy to see emerging filmmakers recognized and selected across all sections. Does Fiorentino feel the same when it comes to Venice?

“This year, two first-time directors, Tommaso Santambrogio and Alain Parroni, who previously took part in [the International Critics Week’s short film competition] SIC@SIC, had their debut features selected in the Giornate degli Autori and Orizzonti, respectively. Another filmmaker we first discovered, Simone Bozzelli, was in competition in Locarno. How can I not be happy about that? It means our initial hunch was accurate. There is, of course, a bit of a healthy rivalry, but what matters is trying to do our job well and to be in service of the films, when possible.”

This connects back to our conversation with the Giornate’s head honcho Gaia Furrer, who said there is a dialogue between the two independent sidebars to make sure select films are in the right hands. “That is true,” says Fiorentino, “and this year we had an especially open exchange, while sticking to the secrecy that’s part of the selection process. Sharing useful information, without a hidden agenda, makes perfect sense to me.”