Venice Film Festival 2025: The Bennale College | Festivals and awards

Since 2015, with 2020 sautéed due to Cavid, I was honored to participate in the Biennial Panel. Each year, after having crossed more than a thousand proposals, the college grants 250,000 euros to, in the case of this year, four filmmakers. Or eight, rather – directors and their producer partners. After a workshop in Venice for a spell, they are sent to deliver finished films to the ten month festival.

The program has always presented to films strong perspectives, individual voices which are not always well presented by the dominant current, etc. I remember one of the first university films that I saw, “The Fits” by Anna Rose Holmer, kicked me just between my eyes. And of course, the Galvanic of Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese “It is not a burial, it is a resurrection” has gone from the college to international renown and an edition of criterion.

I must say, however, this year, it has heard. The films are all exceptional, nothing to meet or challenge. In the past, I would have bones or nits to choose with the filmmakers, that I and the other panelists met at a conference in person at the Biennale. This yes, all I could do was offer them my warmest thanks and congratulations. They seemed to take it.

The panel was summoned and moderated by the great versatile critic and in particular the scholar of Bergman, Peter Cowie. One of the greatest gifts that my work here offered me is a warm friendship with Peter and his charming wife Françoise. Chris Vognar, who has just left Texas to work as a correspondent for pop culture for the Boston GlobeStephanie Zacharek, the film critic for Time Magazine, Summer Finnish cinema Sara Ehholm Hielm and longtime Chicago tribune The critic Michael Phillips is Panel colleagues and longtime friends. Louise Dumas of the legendary Mag of the French film is new in the panel of the legendary French magazine Positive. And we were joined, as it is usual, by Savina Neirotti, the chief of the college program, who provides a crucial context and perspective. But criticisms were largely agree with my own evaluation that this year’s films were particularly strong.

From Cambodia comes “Become human”, “ Directed by Polen Ly and produced by Daniel Mattes, an attractive film which is a kind of combination of “Goodbye Dragon Inn” by Thai Minh-Li and “Wing Wings of Desire” by Wim Wenders. Savorn Serak plays Thida, the guardian angel of a old decrepit cinema house which is about to be demolished. Pisseth Chuun is Hai, a bodily living guy who detects his presence. Thida falls in love with him, which forces him to choose between remaining a spirit and undergo a rebirth. If she goes with the latter, her time with Hai will end. The cinematography is of his son Doan, who also advanced the recent strike film “Viet and Nam”; The images here look strongly on the beauty of the decomposition. The film deepens when we learn how much Thida’s life ended, and how difficult it was before that. The film, like all the selections of this year’s colleges, has a very solid land in its respective country, and Ly has found an appropriate and moving metaphor for the tragedy of the last 70 years of Cambodia.

The co -production of India / Sri Lanka “Secret of a mountain snake”, “ Directed by Nidhi Saxena and produced by Vimukthi Jayasundara, combines magical realism with social history and comments. He says a teacher whose husband is fighting in the Kargil war. “Does love stay?” Even when lovers are distant? ” These are the questions of the film. A man from the outside of his village arrives and puts the place on his ear – nuances of “Teorema” by Pasolini – and his presence seems to show the arrival of the legendary serpent title. The film revels in a silence that is similar to what you sometimes get in Tarkovsky … but it is very specific culturally, and not indebted from the point of view of the Russian maestro as such. Each shot is magnificent. A view of the Co-Star Adil Hussein reflected in the water reminded me of the masterful entrance of Alain Delon in the master-master of Jean-Luc Godard of 1990 “New Wave”. A film that is both enchanting and haunting, imbued with magic and sadness.

“A woman a bra”, From Kenya, directed by Vinch Nchogu and produced by Josh Olaoluwa, is a film that is entirely up to its title, because it must do it. The filmmakers take advantage of the freedom offered by the college program of the Biennale – the opportunity to tell a story not often approached in their general public culture. This story is first of all an examination of a patriarchal society: a village which is shaken when a woman, star (Sarah Karei), becomes the holder of an act of property after the death of her father. It is not done. Exploring her past, she is told that she was the cover of a photo book of a white Western photographer. She finds colleagues and meets an exasperating condescension. It is only an aspect of the strong story of the film through the line, whose push is, yes; “Bringing supporters to women from Sayit. It’s a change of game.”

“Agnus Dei,” Directed by Massimiliano Camaiti and produced by Giovanna Nicolai and Olivia Musini, is the favorite photo of this Catholic boy, and if you see it, you will know why. The title is reflected in “Lamb of God”, of course, and the documentary, without recourse to interviews with voiceover or at the head, follows the life of some lambs which are born in a monastery and cared for by a group of nuns. (The monastery is from Saint Cecilia, in Trasaverre, which has existed since the sixth century.) Request and simple request – this shot in the square ratio 1,37 academy – it is also elegant and humble at the same time. And what he leads is encouraging, likely to move everything except viewers, except the most violently, viewers.

More than ever, I hope these films will soon be available to be seen by your readers Ebert – they deserve it. I mentioned the association of Michael Phillips with the Chicago tribune above; Just before going out here, he was released from the paper, in a stupid and lamentable movement. During the round table, we talked not only about the future of cinema in danger, but also about the future of criticism. Successful filmmakers often say that they do not care about criticism, but our group easily admitted that they needed us to make their images known. And we told them we needed their voice. They should be proud to have gone so far – the college allowed them to make their films, without compromise. Now the challenge of showing them comes.

After the festival, diagrams will be underway to get there. I will be sure to keep you informed.