A queer-leaning Venice Critics Week

by Nathaniel R

Three Nights a Week

The titles have been announced for one of the exciting sidebars at Venice. Critics Week is for feature debuts for emerging filmmakers. That means they're eligible for the Lion of the Future prize, determined by a jury from all debuts across the festival. What's more at least three of these titles are queer films so maybe the Queer Lion will be competitive this year, too! As with the Lion of the Future prize, all sections of the festival counts so a special jury chooses The Queer Lion after screening the qualifying films (in this case anything LGBTQ themed). Venice runs August 31st through September 10th, 2022. Once again this year Elisa Giudici will be covering Venice for us...

OPENING FILM

• Three Nights a Week (d. Florent Gouëlow) 🇫🇷
A photographer (Pablo Pauly) falls for a Parisian drag queen (Romain Eck as "Cookie Kunty"). The writer/director is actually taking that "write what you know" advice seriously; he performs in drag regularly as "Javel Habibi" in Paris. 

CLOSING FILM

• Queens (d. Yasmine Benkiran) 🇲🇦
Three women on the run from police in Casablanca head to the Atlantic Ocean

SPECIAL SCREENING  (not eligible for prizes at it's a retrospective screening)

• O Sangue / Blood (d. Pedro Costa)  🇵🇹
This 1989 debut from Costa (the acclaimed director behind Ne Change Rien and Vitalina Varela - Cláudio has written about him here) is about two young brothers who swear to keep a secret. But it will cost them. 

COMPETITION FILMS

• Anhell69 (d. Theo Montoya) 🇨🇴
A queer film about a young director recalling the production of his first film during a funeral procession for its lead actor. Montoya is just 30 years old making him the youngest of these directors (from the information we can glean though information is not available on all of the filmmakers).

• Beating Sun (d. Philippe Petit) 🇫🇷
A landscaper struggles to create a wild garden in the heart of Marseilles open to all.

• Dogborn (d. Isabella Carbonell) 🇸🇪
Twins (brother and sister played by Philip Oros and Silvana Imam) experience a rift when they realize the"transport" job they're doing involves young girls.

• Eismayer (d. David Wagner) 🇦🇹
A macho closeted sergeant (Gerhard Liebmann) in the Austrian Armed Forces falls for an openly gay soldier (Luka Dimić). Based on a true story. 

• Have You Seen This Woman? (d. Dušan Zoríc and Matija Gluščević) 🇭🇷 🇷🇸
A middle aged woman imagines three different scenarios in an attempt to escape her own life involving  a dead body, a fake husband, and lost memory.

• Margini (d. Niccolò Falsetti) 🇮🇹
A punk trio gets an exciting gig opening for an American band. When it falls through at the last minute the band doesn't give up and travels tot he town anyway.

• Skin Deep (d. Alex Schaad) 🇩🇪
A seemingly happy couple takes a trip to a remote island where everything begings to change (sexuality, identity, perception).

Comments

[Tony L]

'Have You Seen This Woman?' sounds very intriguing to me.