Venice Film Festival 2023 - The Film Verdict

Io Capitano

Posted by Deborah Young | Sep 6, 2023 | Festivals, International Oscars 2024, VENICE 2023 |

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’.

Bye Bye Tiberias

Posted by Jay Weissberg | Sep 5, 2023 | Festivals, International Oscars 2024, Toronto 2023, VENICE 2023 |

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.

Sea Salt

Posted by Ben Nicholson | Sep 5, 2023 | Festivals, VENICE 2023, Verdict Shorts |

The inconsistencies of adolescence are the challenges of burgeoning womanhood are central to Leila Basma’s knotty and intoxicating coming-of-age short, Sea Salt.

In the Shadow of the Cypress

Posted by Ben Nicholson | Sep 5, 2023 | Festivals, VENICE 2023, Verdict Shorts |

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.

The Beast

Posted by Jay Weissberg | Sep 3, 2023 | Festivals, London, NYC, Toronto 2023, VENICE 2023 |

The inability to open oneself to love is the main beast of Bertrand Bonello’s striking and cerebral film that follows a stalled relationship over three time periods, though the message in the central portion doesn’t have the same resonance as the other two.

Tag: Venice Film Festival 2023

Io Capitano

Bye Bye Tiberias

Sea Salt

In the Shadow of the Cypress

The Beast