Oceans Are the Real Continents
Just released in the U.S., ‘Oceans Are the Real Continents’ is an exquisite love poem to Cuba, where three generations struggle to survive daily life in a small rural town.
VENICE 2023
80th. Venice Film Festival
CineVerdict: Los océanos son los verdaderos continentes
Los oceános son los verdaderos continentes es un exquisito poema de amor a Cuba, donde tres generaciones luchan por sobrevivir y sueñan con escapar, representado en una serie de cuadros de la vida cotidiana en un pequeño pueblo rural.
City of Wind
In ‘City of Wind’, Mongolia’s Academy Award hopeful which has already collected prizes at Venice and Pingyao, director Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir offers a charmingly intimate look at a gifted young city-dwelling shaman.
La Vourdalak
Adrien Beau’s ‘La Vourdalak’ is a lo-fi take on the 1839 Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy novella and a super-quirky, semi-scary, and supremely absurd film..
Through The Night
Delphine Girard examines the possibly violent encounter between a man and a woman in her solidly unadorned debut feature, ‘Through the Night’, winner of the Audience Award at the Giornate degli Autori.
CineVerdict: Memoria
CINE VERDICT: Después de su inquietante pero bien recibido thriller `Sundown`, el director mexicano Michel Franco , continúa con `Memoria` un drama familiar-romance dibujado con plantilla , actuado por Jessica Chastain en el papel de una trabajadora social emocionalmente afectada, en Brooklyn.
Venice 2023: The Verdict
The best thing about the 80th Mostra del Cinema was a stand-out film that almost all the critics were able to get behind and support wholeheartedly – and it won the Golden Lion for Best Film.
CineVerdict: La sociedad de la nieve
La caída del avión uruguayo en 1972 en los Andes es recreada respetuosamente y en gran detalle en “La sociedad de la nieve,” una película infartante sobre el desastre, que cierra el festival de cine de Venecia número 80, y es dirigida por J.A. Bayona, que ganó fama con “Lo imposible.”
Out of Season
An unexpected story of loneliness and yearning from Stéphane Brizé in which two former lovers come face-to-face with the disappointments of life, beautiful in its understatement and cinematic restraint yet still generating tremendous poignancy.
Wander to Wonder
The miniature beings that starred in an 80s television show slowly unravel in Wander to Wonder, a surreal animation that riffs on an enchanting children’s story trope.
We Should All Be Futurists
Silent film footage is repurposed in We Should All Be Futurists, a deliciously comic reimagining of Marinetti’s man-machine hybrid as a novel – intimate – cure for female hysteria.
Sentimental Stories
A largely deserted port plays host to subtle drama unraveling at a glacially pace in Xandra Popescu’s strangely beguiling study in stasis, Sentimental Stories.
Lubo
Part survival-revenge drama, part love story, Giorgio Diritti’s ‘Lubo’ addresses the Swiss state’s forcible removal of Jenisch children from their families beginning in the 1930s, and while Franz Rogowski’s magnetism keeps his morally complex character sympathetic, the film feels too much like a miniseries cut down to a very long feature length.
Gasoline Rainbow
The freewheeling independence of the open road is given a Gen-Z spin in the Ross Brothers’ kinetic and affecting hybrid documentary, Gasoline Rainbow.
CineVerdict: Malqueridas
Mujeres en prisiones chilenas retratan la maternidad y el crudo dolor de la separación en este empático e impresionista documental, de Tana Gilbert. filmado con teléfonos celulares.
Malqueridas
Women in Chilean prisons record motherhood and the raw pain of separation in Tana Gilbert’s empathetic and impressionistic, mobile-shot doc of solidarity.
CineVerdict: Lumbrensueño
Lumbrensueño da una lección de creatividad y amor al cine aún con algunas deficiencias.
On The Pulse
‘On The Pulse’ is an admirable but out-of-touch portrait of the gritty work of investigative TV journalists.
Origin
Ava DuVernay’s “Origin” is a highly ambitious attempt to fictionalize Isabel Wilkerson’s theory on the centrality of caste rather than race in determining discriminatory hierarchies, playing to the director’s strengths in terms of depicting personal relationships but also her weaknesses in several overly didactic sequences that treat characters and audiences like ignoramuses.
Venice Immersive: Variations on 360 Degrees
Various installations in the Venice Immersive put their own stamp on the 360-degree viewing experience.
Io Capitano
Director Matteo Garrone steps back from the edginess of stylized crime dramas and horror fantasies to recount the no less cruel and shocking journey made by two Senegalese teens to Europe in ‘Io Capitano’.
Following the Sound
Kyoshi Sugita’s “Following the Sound” ticks all the boxes for nipponophiles seeking some extremely austere storytelling and swathes of slow-moving, soothing imagery set in a small, serene town in Japan.
Snow Leopard
Rural herders, urbanite journalists and a young monk consider the fate of a captured, livestock-ravaging wild animal in “Snow Leopard”, an affective, nuanced and multilayered film bowing out of competition at Venice four months after the death of its Tibetan director Pema Tseden.
Bye Bye Tiberias
Directed by Hiam Abbass’s daughter Lina Soualem, this beautifully layered, quietly intelligent documentary explores her female-centric family’s experiences of dispossession and exile following the 1948 Nakba, seeking to break the silence surrounding trauma.
In the Shadow of the Cypress
Unspoken traumas are made manifest in Shirin Sohani and Hossein Molayemi’s beautifully drawn and profoundly moving animated allegory, In the Shadow of the Cypress.
Coup de Chance
Infidelity is followed by murder in glamorous Paris in Woody Allen’s smooth-as-silk 50th film ‘Coup de Chance,’ shot entirely in French.
CineVerdict: El Paraíso
Una absorbente historia de codependencia edípica ambientada entre los traficantes de droga de Roma, “El Paraíso” cuenta con brillantes actuaciones que superan el sentimentalismo.
El Paraiso
An engrossing tale of Oedipal codependence set among Rome’s drug dealers, ‘El Paraiso’ boasts brilliant acting that overcomes sentimentality.
Venice Immersive: Bugs, Birds and Books
David Attenborough and Neil Gaiman are two of the star players in this year’s Venice Immersive lineup.
Evil Does Not Exist
Starkly opposing views of nature collide in Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s ‘Evil Does Not Exist’ which, despite its portentous title, is simplicity itself and in a minor key after ‘Drive My Car’.
The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial
William Friedkin’s final film sadly lacks the vibrancy and the claustrophobia of his previous stage-to-screen adaptations.
Pet Shop Days
Olmo Schabel’s directorial debut succeeds as a delivery system for ’90s-indie vibes, but it fails to elicit empathy for its spoiled, obnoxious lead characters.
The Killer
David Fincher brings his considerable style and craft to this procedural about a professional assassin, but not even Michael Fassbender can make the character distinguishable from a thousand other cinematic hired guns.
Allen, Besson, Polanski: Three Converging Scandals?
The Venice Film Festival has made headlines in some quarters for selecting the latest works of Allen, Polanski and Besson
The Featherweight
‘The Featherweight’ is an inventive faux doc portrait of boxing great Willie Pep who faces his greatest fight yet: his own legacy.
The Palace
The Palace, Roman Polanski’s appallingly bland black comedy about the filthy rich, is set in a fancy Swiss hotel on New Year’s Eve 1999, and not the least bit funny.
Nuovo Mondo Deodato
The late Italian filmmaker Ruggero Deodato was at the center of one of Venice’s most
anticipated screenings.
CineVerdict: Sobre todo de noche
Sobre todo de noche, el atrevido y excitante debut de Víctor Iriarte, refrescante aún con una historia dolorosa, se estrena en Gionate degli autori en Venecia 2023
Foremost by Night
‘Foremost by Night’, the exciting and daring feature debut of Víctor Iriarte, is refreshing even with its painful story.
CineVerdict: Dios es una mujer
Casi 50 años después de la pérdida de un documental sobre la comunidad kuna de Panamá, el director suizo panameño Andrés Peyrot lo localiza y exhibe ante una comunidad emocionalmente comprometida, en este documental fascinante aùn con sus fallas.
Finally Dawn
Saverio Costanzo’s use of “La Dolce Vita” for a 1950s loss-of-innocence story set in Rome’s film world feels locked in its period charms, and despite excellent performances fails to resonate beyond the surface.
Wallace & Gromit in ‘The Grand Getaway’
Aardman’s beloved duo Wallace & Gromit return in a demanding but fun VR experience that is part of the 2023 Venice Immersive competition.
Poor Things
Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone reteam for an audacious comic odyssey that defies genre and convention.
An Endless Sunday
Dazzling camerawork and an exceptional trio of teenage actors dangle from a weak narrative thread in Alain Parroni’s intense first feature about underprivileged kids growing up without a future.
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar
Wes Anderson’s second Roald Dahl adaptation packs a feature’s worth of deadpan humor and aggressive visual style into just 37 minutes.
Beatrice Fiorentino
The General Delegate of the International Critics Week Beatrice Fiorentino discusses her philosophy for the Venice sidebar.
Upon Open Sky
‘Upon Open Sky’, a Mexican road movie full of restraint and some surprises, premieres in Venice’s Orizzonti section.
God is a Woman
God is a Woman, nearly fifty years after a film documenting Panama’s Kuna community was lost, Swiss-Panamanian director Andrés Peyrot tracks it down and screens it before an emotionally engaged crowd in this fascinating though flawed documentary.
Hollywoodgate
A sobering observational documentary shot at an air force base in Afghanistan, where director Ibrahim Nash’at embedded himself in order to bear witness to the Taliban mindset.
CineVerdict: A cielo abierto
A cielo abierto, road movie mexicana con una controlada dirección y varias sorpresas se estrena en Horizontes in Venecia 2023
Comandante
The true story of an Italian submarine commander in World War II who sank enemy ships yet saved defenseless men is told with old-fashioned gusto and retro sentimentality in ‘Comandante’, with star Pierfrancesco Favino injecting life into the film.
Gaia Furrer
TFV talks to the Artistic Director of the Giornate degli Autori, as the Venice sidebar celebrates its 20th edition.
3 Questions for Roberto Cicutto
THE FILM VERDICT: You have often underlined the uniqueness of the Biennale di Venezia, which encompasses art, architecture, dance, music and theater as well as cinema. You stress that it “has never been just a showcase for talents and films, it has also been a mirror of political, social and environmental criticalities.” How have you...
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Venice Memories
Publisher and film historian Peter Cowie brings insight and humor to his compact history of the Mostra del Cinema.
3 Questions for Alberto Barbera
Alberto Barbera, director of the 80th Venice International Film Festival, reflects on the future of cinema.
The Film Verdict at 1,000 Reviews
How The Film Verdict has grown since its first public bow in Venice.
CineVerdict: El conde
‘El conde’, la oscura sátira de horror cómico revela que convertir a un monstruo de la vida real en el protagonista de su propia película de monstruos es una efectiva manera de lidiar con la tragedia histórica.