European Films

The 21st International Critics' Week (Settimana Internazionale della Critica) of the Venice Film Festival has announced its full  line-up of seven films, from the four corners of the planet. European titles are three in total: Gyula Nemes' Hungarian feature Egyetleneim (My One and Onlies), Hiena (Hyena) from Poland directed by Grzegorz Lewandowsky and Le pressentiment (lit. The Premonition) from French actor-turned-director Jean-Pierre Darroussin. A special screening of Italian low-budget film La rieducazione (The Re-education) from Amanda Flor is also planned.

 

Hungarian entry Egyetleneim is a romantic drama that premiered in February during the Hungarian Film Week, and will be released in its native country on August 30, the day of the opening of the Venice Film Festival (The Critics' Week will start one day later). The film is based on the novel from Tamás Beregi and was adapted by the director. It stars Krisztián Kovács as "The Boy" and Orsolya Tóth as "The Girl".

 

The Polish Hiena is a thriller told from a child's perspective and stars hot young actor Borys Szyc (Pregi/The Welts) in no less than three roles. Jakub Romanowski stars as the child who lives with his mother on an abandoned industrial site near a swamp. The child starts to spend more time with an enigmatic man (Szyc) who lives in a hut on a rose plantation, when rumours start arriving that children in the village have started to disappear. Veteran director Krzysztof Zanussi was an artistic supervisor on the genre project.

 

French actor Jean-Pierre Darroussin (Feux rouges/Red Lights), will present his feature debut as a director called Le pressentiment  in Venice. Darroussin also stars as the protagonist Charles Benesteau, a man who exchanges his luxurious home where he lived with his wife and children to live in a small flat. The reason for his seclusion appears to be something sinister. The film also stars Maurice Chevit, Didier Bezace and Valérie Stroh. The latter co-wrote the film's screenplay.

Filmmaker Amanda Flor, a pseudonym for the all-male quartet composed of young filmmakers Davide Alfonsi, Daniele Guerrini, Alessandro Fusto and Denis Malagnino, will be present for a special screening of their black-and-white project La rieducazione, which was shot for less than a thousand Euros. The fantastic four not only directed the film but also act in it, did the production design and the editing and penned the screenplay. The film is described as a mix of genuine Italian comedy and Italian neo-realism, and is entirely spoken in Romanesco (The dialect spoken in Rome).  

 

The other films that are part of the Critics' Week are Sergio Massa's Argentinian El amarillo,  the Canadian Sur la trace d'Igor Rizzi from director Noel Mitrani and the US-produced A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints from Dito Montiel which stars Robert Downey Jr, who is expected on the Lido to promote the film. Asian cinema is represented by the sole entry Yi nian zhi chu - do over (The Beginning of a Year) from Taiwanese direcrtor Yu-Chieh Cheng. The International Critics' Week runs from August 31 through September 9.