Venice
September 2-12, 2015
Main Sponsor
National Union of Italian Film Critics (SNCCI)
President: Franco Montini
la Biennale di Venezia
President: Paolo Baratta
72. Venice International Film Festival
Director: Alberto Barbera
30. Venice International Film Critics’ Week
September 2-12, 2015
Selection Committee
Francesco Di Pace (General Delegate)
Nicola Falcinella
Giuseppe Gariazzo
Anna Maria Pasetti
Luca Pellegrini
Programming Office
Eddie Bertozzi
Anette Dujisin-Muharay
Palazzo del Cinema – Lungomare Marconi
30126 Lido di Venezia (VE) - Italy
T: +39 041 2726679
sicvenezia@gmail.com - www.sicvenezia.it
Press Office
Gabriele Barcaro
gabriele.barcaro@gmail.com
M: +39 340 5538425
SNCCI Administration Office
Patrizia Piciacchia
Via delle Alpi, 30 - 00198 Roma
T: +39 06 4824713
sncci.info@gmail.com – www.sncci.it
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The Venice International Film Critics’ Week is an independent section of the Venice
International Film Festival, exclusively dedicated to first-time directors’ full-length films.
Founded by Lino Micciché in 1984, the Venice International Film Critics’ Week has been
from the beginning committed to finding, promoting and consolidating new voices and
emerging talents of world cinema. Over its 30 editions, the Venice International Film Critics’
Week discovered and launched young filmmakers that soon became renowned authors in
the international panorama, such as: Kevin Reynolds (Fandango, 1985), Olivier Assayas
(Désordre, 1986), Alex Van Warmerdam (Abel, 1986), Carlo Mazzacurati (Notte italiana,
1987), Paolo Benvenuti (Il bacio di Giuda, 1988), John Hillcoat (Ghosts…of the Civil Dead,
1988), Mike Leigh (High Hope, 1988), Bruce Weber (Let’s Get Lost, 1988), Pedro Costa (O
sangue, 1989), Sergio Rubini (La stazione, 1990), Cédric Kahn (Bar des rails, 1991), Bryan
Singer (Public Access, 1993), Rachid Benhadj (Touchia, 1993), Harmony Korine (Gummo,
1997), Roberta Torre (Tano da morire, 1997), Peter Mullan (Orphans, 1998), Pablo Trapero
(Mundo grua, 1999), Vincenzo Marra (Tornando a casa, 2001), Celina Murga (Ana y los
otros, 2003), Salvatore Mereu (Ballo a tre passi, 2003), Royston Tan (15, 2003), Rian
Johnson (Brick, 2005), Dito Montiel (A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, 2006), Andrea
Molaioli (La ragazza del lago, 2007), Syllas Tzoumèrkas (Homeland, 2010), Alix Delaporte
(Angèle et Tony, 2010).
The latest winners of the Venice International Film Critics’ Week were Pernilla August
(Beyond, 2010), Guido Lombardi (Là-bas, 2011), Gabriela Pichler (Eat Sleep Die, 2012),
Matteo Oleotto (Zoran, il mio nipote scemo, 2013) and Vuk Ršumović (No One’s Child, 2015).
Furthermore, among the authors discovered by the Venice International Film Critics’ Week
and winners of the Lion of the Future - “Luigi De Laurentiis” Award for a Debut Film we
can find Giovanni Davide Maderna (Questo è il giardino, 1999), Abdel Kechiche (La faute à
Voltaire, 2000), Dylan Kidd (Roger Dodger, 2002), Ismaël Ferroukhi (Le grand voyage, 2004),
Gianni Di Gregorio (Pranzo di ferragosto, 2008), Guido Lombardi (Là-bas, 2011), Ali Aydın
(Muffa, 2012) and Noaz Deshe (White Shadow, 2013).
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ALESSANDRO RAK AUTHORS THE NEW OPENING SEQUENCE OF THE
VENICE INTERNATIONAL FILM CRITICS’ WEEK
An animated gem from the director of L’arte della felicità will open the screenings of
the 30th edition
To celebrate its 30th anniversary, the Venice International Film Critics’ Week chose to
renew its opening sequence by handing it over to Alessandro Rak (director of L’arte della
felicità, a Critics’ Week debut), who delivered an animated gem that from this year will
welcome the audience before each screening.
“The new opening sequence – explains the General Delegate Francesco Di Pace – it’s a
beautiful present that makes us very happy: it lasts only 40 seconds, but it is a small
animation film signed by an author that started his successful career right here at Critics’
Week that took him all the way to the European Film Award to be awarded with the best
European animated film prize. We thank Alessandro Rak and factory MAD and wish them the
best of luck for what we believe will be a great set of successes”
New talents Cinema is a city returned to nature, the daughter of civilization, of language,
remaining, nonetheless savage. The critics’ boat gently advances between canals, its eyes
are everywhere, although the cinematographic beast is a roller coaster, a camera born to
prey and take off. Those who love her shall follow her.
“The opening sequence – explains the author, Alessandro Rak – it’s nothing more than a
night sigh: from wake it goes into the night of new cinema, without notable stars giving
judgment or preconceived ideas, just the need for a new path. Wake-up at the end of the
week, with a headache, or at best, with just some broken bones. As if we slept too much in
someone else’s dream. Or in a good mood, satisfied first thing in the morning, as if one lied in
its own certainties for too long”
TECHNIQUE: Digital Animation 2D
AUTHOR: Alessandro Rak
ORIGINAL MUSIC: Antonio Fresa
PRODUCTION: MAD Entertainment
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30. Venice International Film Critics’ Week
September 2-12, 2015
The seven films in competition are:
Ana Yurdu (Motherland) by Senem Tüzen
Turkey-Greece, 2015 – World Premiere
Banat (Il viaggio) (Banat) by Adriano Valerio
Italy-Romania-Bulgaria-Macedonia, 2015 – World Premiere
Kalo Pothi (The Black Hen) by Min Bahadur Bham
Nepal-France-Germany, 2015 – World Premiere
Light Years by Esther May Campbell
United Kingdom, 2015 – World Premiere
Montanha by João Salaviza
Portugal-France, 2015 – World Premiere
The Return by Green Zeng
Singapore, 2015 – World Premiere
Tanna by Martin Butler and Bentley Dean
Australia-Vanuatu, 2015 – World Premiere
Special Events Out of Competition:
Pre-Opening
Jia (The Family) by Liu Shumin
Australia-China, 2015 - World Premier
Opening Film
Saturnia Prize – SIC 30 Special Award
Orphans by Peter Mullan
United Kingdom, 1998
Closing Film – Special Event Out of Competition
Bagnoli Jungle by Antonio Capuano
Italy, 2015 – World Premiere
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SATURNIA PRIZE – SIC 30 SPECIAL AWARD for BEST DEBUT FILM in the
history of the Venice International Film Critics’ Week
to PETER MULLAN for Orphans (1998)
To celebrate its 30th edition, the Venice International Film Critics’ Week (September 2-12,
2015) – an independent section of the Venice Film Festival – is glad to announce its guest of
honour: director and actor PETER MULLAN, who will receive the SATURNIA PRIZE – SIC 30
SPECIAL AWARD. This prize (voted by the members of the National Union of Italian Film
Critics) recognizes the best debut feature film presented in the entire history of the Venice
International Film Critics’ Week.
Among all the debut films that have been presented in the section, Peter Mullan’s 1998
Orphans stood out in the critics’ poll. Already well known as an actor (winner of a Golden
Palm for Best Actor with Ken Loach’s My Name is Joe that same year), as first-time director
Mullan – who will later become Golden Lion winner with The Magdalene Sisters (2002) –
immediately won critical and audience acclaim. Marked by a distinctive black humour, the
film is a merciless portrait of four siblings who get together in Glasgow to mourn the death
of their mother. After more than fifteen years, Orphans will be shown again in Venice on
Thursday, September 3rd (courtesy of Park Circus Limited) as the Special Opening Event of
the 30th Venice International Film Critics’ Week. The film will astonish a new generation of
cinephiles for its confidence in blending humour and drama, finding its best moments
“when you don’t know if you should laugh or burst into tears”, as the director stated back in
1998. Peter Mullan will be in Venice to attend the screening and meet with the audience
and the press.
Besides Orphans, the critics’ top-five debuts were Olivier Assayas’s Disorder (1986), Pablo
Trapero’s Crane World (1999), Abdellatif Kechiche’s Poetical Refugee (2000), and Andrea
Molaioli’s The Girl By the Lake (2007).
“We are proud to celebrate this very special birthday of the Venice International Film Critics’
Week with Peter Mullan and his astonishing debut film Orphans – declared Venice Critics’
Week General Delegate Francesco Di Pace. Thirty years of passion, hard work, and big
satisfactions where Critics’ Week discovered a number of new auteurs who soon after became
internationally acclaimed directors. I sincerely wish to thank all those who have contributed
to the success of the Venice International Film Critics’ Week, the critics who served in the
various selection committees and the general delegates who coordinated their work
throughout the years”.
Main Sponsor
The seven films in competition at the 30. Venice International Film Critics’ Week are
eligible for two awards:

Pietro Barzisa Audience Award – 30. Venice International Film Critics’ Week
The seven films in competition are eligible for the “Pietro Barzisa Audience Award”,
sponsored by Circolo del Cinema di Verona and consisting of 5,000 Euro.

Lion of the Future – “Luigi De Laurentiis” Award for a Debut Film
The seven films in competition as well as all the debut features presented in the
competitive sections of the festival are eligible for the “Lion of the Future – ‘Luigi De
Laurentiis’ Award for a Debut Film”. The prize, consisting of 100,000 USD, is offered
by Aurelio and Luigi De Laurentiis’ Filmauro and will be equally divided between the
director and the producer.
Once more, FEDEORA – Federation of Film Critics of Europe and the Mediterranean – will
award two collateral prizes to films presented at the Venice International Film Critics’ Week:
one for Best Film, and one for Best Script, Best Cinematography, or Best Actor/Actress.
The Venice International Film Critics’ Week’s is once again pleased to be supported by BNL
– BNP Paribas Group, a bank traditionally committed to support Italian cinema and
international film festivals.
Thanks to the patronage of Region of Veneto, the films of the Venice International Film
Critic’s Week will be screened after the conclusion of the Venice International Film Festival
in several cities of Veneto, and thanks to the funds of the Autonomous Province of Trento
and the Autonomous Province of Bolzano, some of the titles will also reach those two cities.
The Venice International Film Critics’ Week further benefits from the invaluable support of
important partners such as Tiziana Rocca Comunicazione, Hotel Saturnia and Istituto
Luce-Cinecittà.
Lastly, The Venice International Film Critics’ Week is delighted to collaborate with media
partners FRED, a multi-language web radio; Festival Scope, an online platform for film
industry professionals; and Quinlan, a film critic magazine.
All press materials are available for download at the following link:
www.sicvenezia.it/stampa
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30. Venice International Film Critics’ Week
September 2-12, 2015
la Biennale di Venezia
and the National Union of Italian Film Critics
present
the line-up of the 30. Venice International Film Critics’ Week
The mark of the 30th edition represents for the Venice International Film Critics’ Week a clear
reason for satisfaction, but also the right moment to think back, not only in a commemorative
way, to the work developed in the last 30 years by the several selection committees. How much
cinema has changed through time is clear to everyone: the production possibilities have changed
for a first time filmmaker, certainly for the best, giving easier and simpler access to the means of
production; for the worst it changed due to the contraction of economic investment, be that
public as well as private. The ways of consumption also altered, specifically for the so called arthouse cinema; on one side there are less screens dedicated to this kind of cinema, although on
the other side, extraordinary possibilities of access are emerging through new online and VoD
platforms, some more some less legal.
The constant effort of this section, organized by the National Union of Italian Film Critics’ is that
of finding at an international level directors who are capable of proposing a renewal of cinema, of
unfolding talents filled with courage but also with a certain thoughtlessness, typical of a debut,
to anticipate tendencies and not to simply pursue reassuring paths.
This year’s program is richer than ever and includes some celebrative moments that refer to our
history: a Special Award to the Best Debut over the last 30 years, conferred through a
referendum by Italian Film Critics’ to director and actor Peter Mullan, that in 1998 revealed his
talent within the Critics’ Week program with his film Orphans, for then to win a Golden Lion with
Magdalene four years later. Orphans will be screened in the opening day of Critics’ Week, with
the presence of the author.
The closing event of this is edition is equally commemorative. In 1991 the Critics’ Week award
went to Antonio Capuano’s Vito e gli altri (Vito and the others). Twenty-four years later and with a
filmography that testifies a very personal and independent cinematographic path, never
compromised with imperative fashions or tendencies, Capuano presents to Critics’ Week his
latest film Bagnoli Jungle, yet another example of expressive and courageous freedom. A film that
confronts three generations, through stories that merge into each other, that move in a difficult
territory, often degraded but extremely vital as the northern periphery of Naples that developed
around the former industrial complex of Bagnoli.
Both films not casually tackle certain topics that blend with the titles in our program: disrupted
families, adolescent crisis and parental conflicts, generations that confront each other in their
private lives but also politically, disorientation induced by the economic crisis that force drastic
life choices. To the seven titles in competition, this year, we unexpectedly added another title
presented as pre-opening. It’s a coup de foudre that lasts 4 hours and 40 minutes: it’s called Jia
(The Family), and it’s the debut of a Chinese filmmaker of Australian citizenship, Liu Shumin.
With autobiographical tones but fictionalized, Liu uses non professional but extremely expressive
actors to recount a few days in the life of an old couple who live in an inland city of China. He
follows movements and every-day rituals, relationship subtleties with their three children, their
common worries and the threats of old age, through a long voyage that both
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undertake to visit their children. With them, we will discover a country in profound
transformation, balanced between tradition and modernity.
Two young people cross their paths escaping a jobless reality without perspective and a broken
marriage in the Italian film in competition: Banat by Adriano Valerio. From Puglia to Romania
through a reverse migration process, agronomist Ivo (a convincing Edoardo Gabriellini) drags
with him the destiny of Clara (an intense Elena Radonicich). A film that reveals a strong talent of
a director already awarded with a David di Donatello and with a special mention in Cannes for
his short-film.
Similarly, the director of the Portuguese film Montanha, João Salaviza displays a very respectable
pedigree: winner of both a Palme d’Or in Cannes and a Golden Bear in Berlin with two of his
short-films, enriches the Critics’ Week program with his first long feature film where he recounts
a special moment in the life of David, a 14 year old boy who is living a crucial moment of his
existence, forced to grow up fast, lacking strong family reference points. A fascinating and poetic
gem, in line with the most successful tradition of contemporary Portuguese cinema.
Another family painfully marked by the momentary absence of their mother and the mysterious
disappearance of their father, is exposed in the British revelation film, Light Years by Esther May
Campbell, a young filmmaker who already directed a multiple awarded short film as well as TV
series episodes. Three kids of different ages are forced to face “light years” distance that
separates them from adulthood, in a walked road movie that will guide them through the
consciousness of the real world that surrounds them. A certain discovery of this selection.
A very present mother that represents a traditional and preconceived conception of the world is
found in the Turkish film of the second female director present in the selection, Senem Tüzen. In
Ana yurdu (Motherland), the writer Nesrin, an emancipated woman with two marriages and an
abortion behind her, returns to her hometown to confront herself with her past ghosts. A very
personal but at the same time a political film. Yet another sample of the exemplary state of the
art of Turkish cinematography.
In the Yakel tribe living in the Tanna Island, there is no such thing as love marriages. Rules
impose arranged marriages that also solve conflicts with neighboring communities. The film
Tanna by Australian duo Martin Butler and Bentley Dean, documentary filmmakers who for the
first time turn to fiction, tells the love story between Wawa and Dain, a relationship that will be
opposed until the very end and with extreme consequences. A flaming mise en scene, just like
the archipelago’s volcano at the center of the film, using local indigenous people as actors. A
beautiful and eccentric melodrama.
Politics as a ghost from the past reappear in the Singaporean film, The Return by Green Zeng: an
old man returns home to his daughter and son after spending decades in jail accused of
communism, an accusation that in the Singaporean regime equals one of the worst crimes. Wen
will be confronted in the acceptance of his closest family and will also have to face the deep
transformation that his country went through, in a film with one of the most refined and classic
styles of the entire selection.
Political conflicts are also in the background of the first Nepalese long feature film ever
premiered in Venice, a debut by Min Bahadur Bham, who already presented his previous short
film in Venice. In Kalo Pothi (The Black Hen) the adventures of two kids and their hen are
intertwined with those of the community of a small village consumed by the civil war between
government army and Maoist guerrilla (we are at the end of the 90s). A delicious adventure film
that will certainly conquer passionate fans.
Francesco Di Pace
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ANA YURDU (Motherland)
Turkey-Greece, 2015, col., 98’
Director: Senem Tüzen. Screenplay: Senem Tüzen. Cinematography: Vedat Özdemir. Editing:
Yorgos Mavropsaridis, Adam Isenberg, Senem Tüzen. Sound: Leandros Ntonis. Art Direction:
Metin Celik. Cast: Esra Bezen Bilgin (Nesrin), Nihal Koldas (Halise), Semih Aydin (Halil), Fatma
Kısa (Emine). Production: Olena Yershova (Zela Film), Adam Isenberg, Senem Tüzen. Executive
Producer: Baris Yildrim Co-production: Nikos Moutselos (2|35).
Nesrin, an urban upper-middle class woman, goes back to her parents’ old village in Anatolia to
finish a novel and live out her dream of being a writer. When her conservative mother turns up
uninvited and refuses to leave, Nesrin’s writing stalls and her fantasies of village life turn bitter.
The two woman are forced to confront the darker corners of each other’s inner worlds.
We are not in the busy streets of the capital city filled with youngsters, but in a remote town in
Anatolia, of deserted sidewalks and rundown houses. It is there that women, custodians of
memories and pain, talk, wait, pray and get old. Nasrin arrives to this “Motherland” full of anger
and lost expectations, with lovers and lives left behind, starving for a future and for coherence in
this suspended Turkey. It’s a mirror of today’s urban populations’ fluid identities. Senem Tüzen
captures with strong and raw images this not only ideal but also real confrontation between a
daughter and a mother, between the traditional and religious past and the present, an uncertain
guardian of new values and perspectives, also guardian of violence. A set of stories and a way of
recounting them that honor Turkish cinema.
Senem Tüzen, born in Ankara in 1980, holds a degree in cinema from the Mimar Sinan Fine
Arts Academy of Istanbul. She directed a number of short films that have been awarded
worldwide. In particular, her short Unus Mundus won the Turkish Film Critics Association’s Best
Short Award in 2009. The same year, her short Milk and Chocolate was nominated for the same
prize. Besides directing, she also works as an editor, cinematographer and producer. Ana yurdu
(Motherland) is her first full-length film.
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BANAT (IL VIAGGIO) (Banat)
Italy-Romania-Bulgaria-Macedonia, 2015, col., 82’
Director: Adriano Valerio. Screenplay: Adriano Valerio, Ezio Abbate. Cinematography:
Jonathan Richenbourg. Editing: Catalin Cristutiu. Music: Assen Avramov. Sound: Pier-Yves
Lavoué. Art Direction: Adrian Cristea, Maria Teresa Padula. Costumes: Sabrina Beretta, Angela
Tomasicchio Cast: Edoardo Gabriellini (Ivo), Elena Radonicich (Clara), Piera Degli Esposti (Mrs.
Nitti), Stefan Velniciuc (Ion), Ovanes Torosyan (Christian). Production: Mario Mazzarotto,
Emanuele Nespeca (Movimento Film) with Rai Cinema. Co-production: Ada Solomon (Parada
Film), Ivan Tonev (Ars Digital), Dimitar Nikolov (Kt Film and Media). Film of a recognized cultural
interest. With the contribution of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. Produced with the
contribution of Apulia Film Commission. Developed with the contribution of the Media Program.
Bari, a city caught in the relentless economic crisis. Ivo is an agronomist, but the lack of
opportunities pushes him to accept a job in the fertile region of Banat, in Romania. Clara has
just ended a relationship and is about to lose her job at the Bari harbor. Ivo and Clara meet by
chance and seem to immediately understand each other. They spend only one night together
before Ivo’s departure, but that is enough to create a bond and wanting to meet again. When
Clara visit him in Romania, they fall in love. But is exile their only way to happiness?
Between the streets of Bari and the wintery Romanian countryside of the Banat region. It is there
that the inner and geographical displacement of the characters and places unfold, searching for
identity. The pre-condition is that of the economic crisis, that force man and women to leave, to
suspend their bond with their hometowns. Beyond this starting point, at the heart of Adriano
Valerio’s film, is the description of a humanity searching for a new balance amid a painful
relationship with memory. Valerio explores these issues (already tackled in his short film 37º4S,
awarded in Cannes in 2013) with a sensitive and at the same time free and geometrical gaze,
facing two seas, telling of a journey of departure and maybe of returning. A testimony of a
forcefully stateless generation.
Adriano Valerio, after completing his BA in Law at the Università Statale in Milan and attending
Marco Bellocchio’s film workshop, moved to France. He teaches Film Analysis at the
International Film School of Paris. Moreover, he collaborates with the Académie Libanaise des
Beaux Arts of Beirut, the Istituto Marangoni and the Italian Cultural Institute of Paris. In 2012
he founded the Camera Mundi association, which organizes film workshops in developing
countries. In the same year, he attended the Berlinale Talent Campus and the Locarno Film
Academy. His short 37°4S won a Special Mention at the Cannes Film Festival (2013) and the
David di Donatello Award for Best Italian Short (2014). Banat is his first full-length film.
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KALO POTHI (The Black Hen)
Nepal-France-Germany, 2015, col., 86’
Director: Min Bahadur Bham. Screenplay: Min Bahadur Bham. Cinematography: Aziz
Zhambakiyev. Editing: Nimesh Shrestha, Aziz Zhambakiyev. Music: Jason Kunwor. Sound:
Bipon Stahpit. Art Direction: Menuka Rai. Costumes: Nanda Keshar Bham, Tara Khatri. Cast:
Khadka Raj Nepali (Prakash), Sukra Raj Rokaya (Kiran), Jit Bahadur Malla (padre di Prakash),
Hansha Khadka (sorella di Prakash). Production: Tsering Rhitar Sherpa (Mila Productions Pvt.
Lrd). Coproduction: Debaki Rai (Shooney Films Pvt. Lrd), Catherine Dussart (CDP), Anna
Katchko (Tandem Production), Anup Thapa, Min Bahadur Bham.
The so-called civil war that tear apart Nepal for 10 years, from 1996 until 2006, opposing the
army to Maoist revolutionaries, serves as the background for Prakash and Kiran, two boys very
aware that coming from a different cast divides, but friendship and age unites. A white hen
stolen from a wheat field becomes their hope. Breading it, Prakash believes to be able to gather
money to allow Bijuli, his little sister, to study. But the hen will unexpectedly change hands and
they will need wit to make her come back to its original owners.
Hens are part of fairy tales imagery. A famous chicken is the one that made golden eggs. That
farmyard clocking was also the verse that accompanied crowds of children in so many rural areas
around the world. Similarly, claiming up the Nepalese mountains in those lost villages that bear a
land rich of ancestral reminiscences, custodians of inauspicious tragedies, both natural and civil,
there too, hens and children have their space to run around. Kiran and Prakash are very aware
that coming from a different cast divides, but lighthearted childhood and a white and then black
hen unites. Min Bahadur Bham places the losing and finding of people, animals, objects and
nature in the ferocity of war, which neither the strength of religion nor the strength of myth
manages to circumscribe. In this place, children have nothing else left but dream.
Min Bahadur Bham is a young emerging director graduated in Nepali Literature, Filmmaking,
Buddhist Philosophy and Political Science. His short film The Flute (2002) became a historical
achievement being the first time a Nepali film was ever selected at the Venice International Film
Festival. He participated in the Berlinale Talent Campus and attended the Asian Film Academy
in the Busan International Film Festival in 2013 where he was awarded The Outstanding Fellow
Award. Kalo pothi is his debut film and the first Nepali long-feature film presented in Venice.
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LIGHT YEARS
United Kingdom, 2015, col., 90’
Director: Esther May Campbell. Screenplay: Esther May Campbell. Cinematography: Zac
Nicholson. Editing: Chris Barwell. Music: Eric Chenaux. Sound: Robin Gerard. Art Direction:
Jane Morton. Costumes: Maggie Chappelhow. Special Effects: Edd Maggs. Cast: Beth Orton
(mother), Muhammet Uzuner (father), Zamiera Fuller (Rose), Sophie Burton (Ramona), James
Stucky (Ewan). Production: Samm Haillay (Third Films), Duane Hopkins, Wendy Bevan Mogg.
Executive Producer: Keith Griffiths (Illuminations Films). Co-production: Andrew McVicar.
World sales: The Match Factory.
Mum is in the hospice and 8-year-old Rose wants to visit. But nobody will take her. Ever. Moving
like a ghost at dawn, her father disappears from the isolated house. Meanwhile sister Ramona
waits for a boy who never comes and brother Ewan, anxious inside and online, communes with
apparitions while the real world forgets him. But Rose reckons a family is like a constellation, all
connected, even when actually they are light years away from each other.
Imagination protects from pain. When we are young this is the golden rule that adult
consciousness destroys. Nevertheless, that inner “child” can reappear; one has only to search for it
in the lightness of a detail or a gaze. Light Years holds on to this. In its marvelous ambiguity of a
phrase with double meaning, the ages of Rose, Ramona and Ewan are as “light” as well as “light
years” distant from the loss of innocence. In this view, the five members of the film’s family become
a constellation of immaginific unconsciousness that only the pure gaze of 8-year-old Rose is
capable of aligning. Sublime, tender and characterized by a mature filmmaking, Light Years
tackles the intimacy of a universality that no one can escape from.
Esther May Campbell’s early work as the writer and director of shorts and music videos took
her all over the world winning her acclaim and awards from the outset. In 2008 she wrote and
directed September, funded by the UKFC, which won one Bafta Award for Outstanding Short
Film as well as ten other international awards. This recognition brought her work on flagship
Channel 4 drama Skins and in 2011 she went on to direct a feature-length episode of BBC1’s
Wallander starring Kenneth Branagh, which attracted over 5 million viewers. She runs a
community cinema project for children in Haiti and continues to construct visuals for Britain’s
best underground musicians. Light Years is her debut feature film.
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MONTANHA
Portugal-France, 2015, col., 88’
Director: João Salaviza. Screenplay: João Salaviza. Cinematography: Vasco Viana. Editing:
Edgar Feldman, João Salaviza. Music: Norberto Lobo. Sound: Olivier Blanc. Art Direction:
Nadia Henriques. Costumes: Margarida Ruas. Cast: David Mourato (David), Rodrigo Perdigão
(Rafael), Cheyenne Domingues (Paulinha), Maria João Pinho (Monica). Production: Maria João
Mayer (Filmes do tejo II), François d’Artemare (Les films de l’apres-midi). World sales: Pyramide
International.
A hot summer in Lisbon. David, 14, awaits the imminent death of his grandfather, but refuses to
visit him, fearing this terrible loss. His mother, Mónica, spends her nights at the hospital. The
void already left by his grandfather forces David to become the man of the house. He doesn’t feel
ready to assume this new role, but without realizing it, the more he tries to avoid adulthood the
more he gets close to it…
Adolescence it’s like a mountain to be climbed that can sometimes become extremely steep. David,
a fourteen-year-old boy, experiences it in just a few days. His growing up process is accelerated by
his grandfather’s agony in the hospital and by a first love that disrupts his days. It’s the story of a
young boy that is forced to grow older, who is tender and angry at the same time, someone who is
capable of a disarming declaration of love. This film is a coming of age in the style of the best
Portuguese cinema, underlined by the authorship of a debuting director who is already quite
mature, who uses key passages from a summerish background, an amusement park, a motorbike
rides or a dance floor in a sensitive and effective way. A debut film that almost manages to stop
time in order to hold still that moment of passage.
João Salaviza, born in Lisbon in 1984, graduated from ESTC – National Film and Theatre
Academy of Lisbon and Universidad del Cine of Buenos Aires. His award-winning shorts were
selected in more than a hundred film festivals all over the world. In particular, he directed a
successful trilogy of shorts including Arena (Golden Palm for Best Short at Cannes 2009), Cerro
negro (Rotterdam Film Festival 2012), and Rafa (Golden Bear for Best Short at the Berlinale
2012 and Award in memory of Ingmar Bergman at the Uppsala Film Festival). In 2012, the
Centre Pompidou in Paris presented four of his films in a retrospective program. Montanha is his
debut full-length film.
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THE RETURN
Singapore, 2015, col., 80’
Director: Green Zeng. Screenplay: Green Zeng, June Chua. Cinematography: Wong Meng Fye.
Editing: Green Zeng. Music: Richard Cooper. Sound: Takuya Katsu. Art Direction: Yeo Lee
Nah. Costumes: Grace Wong. Cast: Chen Tianxiang (Lim Soon Wen), Vincent Tee (Tien), Tan
Beng Chiak (Mei), Gary Tang (young Wen), Evelyn Wang (young Mei), Wong Kai Tow (Bee), Isaiah
Lee (boy in white), Eugene Tan (doctor), Shan Rievan (son of Kamis). Production: June Chua
(Mirtillo Films Pte Ltd).
Wen is a political detainee who is released after many years of imprisonment. Arrested for being
an alleged communist, he returns, an old man, to an uneasy reunion with his children. Wen also
wanders through the city to see how his homeland transformed into a shining metropolis. He is
philosophical about his long detainment without trial and is ready to move on. But as the past
collides with the present, unforeseen circumstances force his journey to take a tragic turn.
Returning home after being released from jail is such a recurrent theme in cinema that it almost
became a genre of its own. Getting out of jail after almost half a century means discovering a world
that has completely changed. The main character, Lim Soon Wen spent most of his life behind bars
accused of communism; once he is out he re-encounters his son and daughter, abandoned as little
children and now fully-grown adults. He observes and examines an insular city-state finding it
hard to recognize. A well composed film, raw and touching, with an elegant direction style in its
crucial moments. The traces left in the life of a human being are like stains of ink, those that
underline turning points of big and small life events, that evoke and contains half a century of
Singapore’s history.
Green Zeng is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work encompasses film, visual arts, and theatre.
He has directed many short films such as Blackboard Whiteshoes, which was selected in Cannes
in 2006, and Passenger, which the same year was awarded the Encouragement Prize at the
Akira Kurosawa Memorial Short Film Competition in Tokyo. He is currently the Creative Director
of Singapore film production company Mirtillo Films, and has directed dramas for television and
corporate videos. The Return is his first feature film.
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TANNA
Australia-Vanuatu, 2015, col., 104’
Directors: Martin Butler and Bentley Dean. Screenplay: Bentley Dean, Martin Butler, John
Collee in collaboration with the people of Yakel. Cinematography: Bentley Dean. Editing: Tania
Michel Nehme. Music: Antony Partos. Sound: Emma Bortignon. Cast: Mungau Dain (Dain),
Marie Wawa (Wawa), Marceline Rofit (Selin), Chief Charlie Kahla (Chief Charlie), Albi Nangia
(Shaman), Lingai Kowia (Father), Dadwa Mungau (Grandmother), Linette Yowayin (Mother),
Kapan Cook (Kapan Cook), Chief Mikum Tainakou (Imedin Chief). Production: Martin Butler,
Bentley Dean, Carolyn Johnson (Contact Films). World Sales: Visit Films.
In a traditional tribal society in the South Pacific, a young girl, Wawa, falls in love with her
chief’s grandson, Dain. When an inter-tribal war escalates, Wawa is unknowingly bethroted as
part of a peace deal. The young lovers run away, refusing her arranged fate. They must choose
between their hearts and the future of the tribe, while the villagers must wrestle with preserving
their traditional culture and adapting it to the increasing outside demands for individual
freedom.
“I can hear her, she is talking to me”. Selin is probably around 6 or 7 years old, with a straw skirt
and a contagious smile. That “her” she mentions is the Yahul volcano that her tribe worships as a
divinity. From the beginning of times, Yahul in Yakel, a village of the Tanna Island in the heart of
the Pacific Ocean, emanates a law that no one dares to contradict. No one except two lovers:
Selin’s sister and the grandson of the chief of the tribe. Constructed as a dance that transcends
cinema genres, Tanna is a film about the essence of life and love that is ready to face anything in
order to keep its integrity. If the Australian filmmakers' ethnographic research is exemplary, the
result of their debut in fiction manages to distance ourselves from exoticism, in order to enter in the
intimacy of a world that is much closer to us than we imagine.
Martin Butler and Bentley Dean steeped in successful documentary-making have crossed over
into directing drama. They film in an unobtrusive, intimate way with Bentley operating the
camera and Martin recording sound. In 2009 they collaborated on Contact, which won the AFI
award for best feature documentary, the Prime Minister’s History Prize, Best Feature
Documentary at the Film Critic Circle of Australia and Best Documentary at the Sydney Film
Festival. In 2013 they completed First Footprints, a landmark series on the ancient history of
Australia, winning the Walkley Award, ATOM award and NSW Premier’s History Prize.
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Pre-Opening – Special Event Out of Competition
JIA (The Family)
Australia-China, 2015, col., 280’
Director: Liu Shumin. Screenplay: Liu Shumin. Cinematography: Liu Shumin. Editing: Liu
Shumin. Art Direction: Lu Hong, Liu Xujun, Liu Shumin, Lue Feng. Sound: Wei He,
Wendu’erhan. Cast: Deng Shoufang (Deng, the mother), Liu Lijie (Liu, the father), Liu Xiaomin
(Xiaomin), Jiang Jiangsheng (Jiangsheng), Chen Erya (Pingping), Huang Liqin (Liqin), Liao
Zepeng (Pengpeng), Liu Xujun (Xujun). Production: Shen Lijiang (Secular Films).
Liu and Deng are a couple both in their 70s who have been married for nearly half a century and
lived in a small inland city of China. The family of Liu and Deng is a typical ordinary family of
China. The eldest daughter Liquin, divorced with a teenage son, lives with them. The second
daughter Xiaomin and youngest son Xujun live in far away cities, married and with their own
families. They are also too busy to visit their parents; therefore the old couple decide to travel a
long way to visit them. It will be a special journey where they will do everything they can to keep
the family tied together despite the distance, being the family their sole purpose in life.
A 4 hour and 40 minutes long film that immediately fascinates. A family epic as simple as
captivating, with an intimate, respectful and tender stride. A passionate chronicle of life’s details smiles, pain, affections - uncovered step by step through the septuagenarian characters who travel
through a new China, baring a mission both small and titanic: to visit their son and daughters, talk
to them, support them. As witnesses of a rigorous style, we enter in this family with stealthily
steps: we observe the old woman cooking meals, we listen to their confessions, remembrances,
problems. Filmed in 35mm with an extraordinary cast of non-actors, Jia denotes an author that
already in its debut does not fear to challenge himself with an exceptionally long,
but necessary narrative, creating a cinematic gem perfectly achieved.
Liu Shumin was born in a small inland town of China 41 years ago. After graduating in Physics
from Tongji University in Shanghai, Liu went on to study filmmaking in the Beijing Film
Academy. He moved to Australia in 2002. His documentary Yu Opera Performers was included in
the Australian Center for Moving Image’s collection. He worked as a cinematographer for several
films and commercials. From 2012 he started working on his debut film Jia, finished in 2015
after one year of shooting.
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Opening Film – Special Event Out of Competition
Saturnia Prize – SIC 30 Special Award
ORPHANS
United Kingdom, 1998, col., 95’
Director: Peter Mullan. Screenplay: Peter Mullan. Cinematography: Grant Scott Cameron.
Editing: Colin Monie. Music: Craig Armstrong. Art Direction: Campbell Gordon. Costumes:
Lynn Aitken. Cast: Gary Lewis (Thomas), Douglas Henshall (Michael), Rosemarie Stevenson
(Sheila), Stephen McCole (John), Frank Gallagher (Tanga), Alex Norton (Hanson). Production:
Frances Higson (Antonine Films/Green Bridge). Executive producer: Paddy Higson. World
sales: Park Circus Limited.
Mrs Flynn’s adult offspring – Thomas, Michael, Sheila, and John – gets together at the family
house in Glasgow to mourn the death of their mother and prepare for her funeral. As a violent
storm hits the city, the four siblings tear each other apart during a long dark night of events and
misunderstandings. Hurt, angry, and confused, each member of the family has to come to terms
with his own distress, in the course of 24 hours of meteorological and emotional storm.
Peter Mullan is a remarkably cheerful man that directed a very sad debut film. Sad, but filled with
strong and an almost outrageous vitality, that same vitality typical of the British working class,
that often show their feelings and their own fragilities trough confrontation and violence. “With
Orphans I wanted to explore a different side of pain” declared Mullan, “the most angry and
vulnerable side of pain: the irrecoverable loss of both parents”. Filmed in an unseen Glasgow, if
compared to how it was shown previously on the big screen, Orphans also wants to be a parable
of Scotland in the 90s: abandoned, without parents, left to the mercy of free market, without any
social security. Although intense and painful, Orphans doesn’t set aside an irresistible thread of
humor, finding its best moments when, as Mullan says, “you don’t know whether to laugh or burst
into tears”
Peter Mullan was born in Glasgow in 1959. He starts acting at 10, becoming later a member of
the Wildcat Theatre Company and an actor at the Glasgow Tron Theatre. He has acted in many
important films such as Ken Loach’s Riff-Raff (1991) and My Name is Joe (1998) – winning a
Golden Palm as Best Actor for this latter – Danny Boyle’s Shallow Grave (1994) and Trainspotting
(1996), Mike Figgis’ Miss Julie (1999), Paddy Considine’s Tyrannosaur (2011), and Steven
Spielberg’s War Horse (2011). He also acted in several tv series, including Top of the Lake (2013)
and Olive Kitteridge (2014). As a director, he shot a number of shorts (including the awardwinning Good Day for Bad Guys and Fridge) and three features: Orphans (Best Film at the Venice
Critics’ Week in 1998), Magdalene (Golden Lion 2002), and Neds (Best Film at San Sebastian
Film Festival 2010).
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Closing Film – Special Event Out of Competition
BAGNOLI JUNGLE
Italy, 2015, col., 100’
Director: Antonio Capuano. Screenplay: Antonio Capuano. Cinematography: Antonio
Capuano. Editing: Diego Liguori. Music: Federico Odling. Sound: Angelo D’Agata. Art
Direction: Silvia Ajello. Costumes: Francesca Balzano. Cast: Antonio Casagrande (Antonio),
Luigi Attrice (Giggino), Marco Grieco (Marco). Production: Antonio Capuano, Gennaro Fasolino,
Dario Formisano (Eskimo). Executive Producer: Gennaro Fasolino. Co-production: Andrea De
Liberato, Emanuele Moretti (Enjoy Movies).
Bagnoli. Among the ruins of Ilva, the great factory of progress in the past and today a desolate
indictment, Giggino, Antonio and Marco move, live and survive. Three generations that,
throughout the three chapters, only occasionally cross paths. Three characters that one at a
time encounter street musicians and house painters, nuns and gangsters, half naked or
desperate housewives, fat shopkeepers and starving migrants. And also rappers, runaways,
normal people at a protest… Without any order or sense. Only those who remain where history
erased their paths will find themselves in a steppe, or in a desolate, contaminated and empty
jungle.
A land. Three characters representing three generations. Three chapters that blend into each other.
A journey in the present and in the past that inextricably coexists in the scars left by time in the
bodies of both people and Italsider’s buildings. This is what Antonio Capuano shows us in Bagnoli
Jungle, done with a visionary and creative language that distinguish his cinema, a cinema that
never reconciled since his debut Vito e gli altri (winner of Venice International Film Critics’ Week in
1991). The Neapolitan director owns a style that dares imperfection, that expands and contracts,
that runs till the very last breath to then stay still. A style that in Bagnoli Jungle is both Giggino
the runner as well as the “Italy statue” in the middle of garbage. An imperfect and sumptuous
oeuvre, surreal and realist, experimental and political. Radically independent.
Antonio Capuano Director, screenwriter, theater author, he started as an art director in Rai. He
arrives to cinema in 1991 with Vito e gli altri (Vito and the others), best film among those
presented at the Venice International Film Critics’ Week and Nastro d’Argento as best debut film.
In 1997 Pianese Nunzio, 14 anni a maggio (Pianese Nunzio, Fourteen in May) with Patrizio
Bentivoglio was in competition in Venice and won a David di Donatello. He also directed the
episode Sofialorén in the collective film I vesuviani (The Vesuvians) (1997), Polvere di Napoli
(1998), Luna Rossa (2001), La guerra di Mario (2005). Before Bagnoli Jungle he directed Giallo?
(2009) and L’amore buio (2010).
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