Venice Critics’ Week has announced the line-up for its 38th edition, running August 30 to September 9 alongside the Venice Film Festival.
The seven competition titles include UK director Moin Hussain’s debut feature Sky Peals about a lonely man working the night shifts at a motorway service station with little human contact or connection.
Upon hearing that his estranged father has died, Adam finds himself piecing together a complicated image of a man that he never really knew and uncovers details of his life that he struggles to comprehend.
The debut feature follows a trio of well-travelled shorts including Holy Thursday, Real Gods Require Blood, which premiered at Cannes Critics’ Week in 2017 and also played at Sitges, Frightfest, and Edinburgh, and Naptha.
Also from the UK is Luna Carmoon’s mother daughter drama Hoard featuring newcomer Saura Lightfoot Leon as well as Stranger Things actor and Joseph Quinn and Hayley Squires (I, Daniel Blake).
Taiwanese actor Lee Hong-Chi’s will also unveil his directorial debut Love Is A Gun about a petty criminal whose attempts to build a quiet life following his release from prison are upended by the reappearance of his former boss, his debt-ridden mother and an old friend.
Lee Hong Chi’s acting credits include Thanatos, Drunk, Long Day’s Journey into Night, Cities of Last Things and Tigertail.
Further competition titles include German director Julia Fuhr Mann’s hybrid docu-fiction Life Is Not A Competition But I Am Winning, exploring the debate around trans inclusion and LGBTQ+ rights in sport through the figures of trans marathon runner Amanda Reiter and Ugandan athlete Annet Negesa, who was urged by the international sports federations to undergo hormone-altering surgery.
The competition titles will compete for the €5,000 Grand Prize and the €3,000 Audience Award. The selection committee is led by delegate general Beatrice Fiorentino with members including Enrico Azzano, Chiara Borroni, Ilaria Feole, and Federico Pedroni.
Venice Critics’ Week has shown a raft of first films by directors who have gone on to achieve A-list festival status over its 39 editions.
Past selections include Olivier Assayas’s Désordre (1986), Mike Leigh’s High Hopes (1988), Bruce Weber’s Let’s Get Lost (1988), Pablo Trapero premiered Mundo Grúa (1999), Abdellatif Kechiche’s La faute à Voltaire (2000 and Ala Eddine Slim’s The Last Of Us (2016).
The 2023 line-up:
Competition
About Last Year (Italy)
Dir. Dunja Lavecchia, Beatrice Surano, Morena Terranova
Hoard (UK)
Dir. Luna Carmoon
Life Is Not A Competition, But I’m Winning (Germany)
Dir. Julia Fuhr Mann
Love Is A Gun (Hong Kong, China)
Dir. Lee Hong-Chi
Malqueridas (Chile, Germany)
Tana Gilbert
Sky Peals (UK)
Dir. Moin Hussain
The Vourdalak (France)
Dir. Adrien Beau
Out of Competition
God Is A Woman (France, Switzerland, Panama)
Dir. Andrés Peyrot
Vermin (France, Morocco) – Closing Film
Dir. Sébastien Vaniček
Special Screening (in collaboration with the Venice International Film Festival and Giornate degli Autori)
Passione Critica (Italy)
Dirs. Simone Isola, Franco Montini, Patrizia Pistagnesi
