Carolina Cavalli’s ‘Amanda’ Debuts First-Look Clip Ahead of Venice Premiere (EXCLUSIVE)

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Following the world premiere of “My Neighbor Adolf” on the Piazza Grande in Locarno, Beta Cinema has sold the dark comedy to Vendetta Films, which will bring the Udo Kier and David Hayman starrer to cinemas across Australia and New Zealand in the first quarter of next year.  Prior to Locarno, Beta Cinema sold the film to Hungary (Cinetel) and Switzerland (Praesens Film), while deals for North America (Cohen Media Group), U.K. and Ireland (Signature Entertainment), Italy (I Wonder), South Korea (Lumix Media) and Japan (Tohokushinsha Film) had been revealed before. The film is set in Colombia in 1960, just a few days after the Nazi criminal Adolf Eichmann was caught by Mossad agents in Argentina. Polsky, played by Hayman, is a lonely and grumpy old man, living in the remote Colombian countryside. He is a survivor of the Holocaust. He spends his days playing chess and tending his beloved rosebushes. One day, a mysterious old German man – played by Kier – moves in next door, and Polsky suspects that his new neighbor is… Adolf Hitler. Since nobody believes him, he embarks on a mission to uncover the evidence. In order to gather it, however, he will need to come closer to his neighbor than he would like – so close that the two could almost become friends.

Tessa Thompson rocked a new look at the latest premiere during the 2022 Venice Film Festival.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Alexander Rodnyansky, the producer of Oscar nominated films “Leviathan” and “Loveless,” has boarded the next project from Kazakh director Adilkhan Yerzhanov (pictured), whose film “Goliath” has its world premiere at Venice Film Festival on Thursday in the Horizons Extra section. The new project, “Nosorog,” tells a contemporary story of Tamara, a distraught woman on a desperate search for her missing son in a small town consumed by violent riots. To help get her son back, she hires a shady detective, Brayuk, with unexpected consequences. Rodnyansky joins producers Aliya Mendygozhina and Olga Khlasheva on the project, which is a co-production between the State Center of Support of the National Cinema of Kazakhstan and Kazakh film company Golden Man Media.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Berlin-based sales outfit M-Appeal has closed distribution deals for Italy and Greece following the film’s world premiere at the Venice Film Festival. The Israeli-Ukrainian co-production plays in Venice’s Horizons Extra section, and will have its North American premiere on Sept. 14 at Toronto Film Festival in the Contemporary World Cinema section. Rome-based P.F.A Films Srl will distribute the film in Italy, with a theatrical release planned for April 2023. The company’s recent titles include “Fabian – Going to the Dogs” by Dominik Graf, “The Audition” by Ina Weisse, and “Border” by Abbasi Ali.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Prominent arthouse sales company The Match Factory has closed multiple sales on Italian auteur Gianni Amelio’s Venice competition title “Lord of the Ants” ahead of its Venice premiere on Tuesday. The Match Factory has sealed deals on Amelio’s latest work – which is a biopic of Italian poet, playwright and director Aldo Braibanti, who was jailed in 1968 due to a Fascist-era anti-gay law – that will ensure the film’s theatrical release in: Australia/New Zealand (Palace Films); Japan (Zazie Films); Spain (Surtsey Films); Sweden (TriArt Film) and Greece (Ama Films). Further deals are in negotiation, the company said. Braibanti was convicted after a complaint from his partner’s father, who later forced his son to be treated with electroconvulsive therapy in an ill-conceived attempt to rid him of his homosexuality. The Fascist-era law that punished Braibanti, which made it a crime to lead innocent or unwary people “morally” astray, was repealed in 1981.

An eccentric 20-something tries to make friends in Amanda, a first feature for Italian writer-director Carolina Cavalli. Premiering in Venice’s Horizons Extra section, it’s a comical, stylized character portrait with a strong central turn from Benedetta Porcaroli. 

Florence Pugh had the best red carpet date at the Don’t Worry Darling premiere – her grandmother, Pat!

Christopher Vourlias On the eve of the 79th Venice Film Festival, where his powerful Ukraine war documentary “Freedom on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom” will premiere out of competition on Sept. 7, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Evgeny Afineevsky was in a frantic race against time. Footage was still being shot in Ukraine into the second week of August, with Afineevsky only completing the film on Aug. 31 — the same day that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the A-list celebrities and foreign press at the festival’s opening ceremony, urging the world not to forget the war in Ukraine with the impassioned plea: “Don’t turn your back to us.”

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Venice Film Festival title “Music for Black Pigeons,” directed by Danish filmmakers Jørgen Leth, best known for “The Five Obstructions,” and “The Lost Leonardo” helmer Andreas Koefoed, has debuted its trailer with Variety. The documentary, which premieres on Tuesday in Venice’s Out of Competition section, explores the lives and processes of some of the world’s most renowned and prolific jazz musicians, including Jakob Bro, Bill Frisell, Lee Konitz, Paul Motian and Midori Takada. Leth, who has directed more than 40 films including landmark works such as “A Sunday in Hell” (1977) and the surrealist short “The Perfect Human” (1968), returns to Venice after his feature documentary “The Five Obstructions,” which he co-directed with Lars von Trier, screened on the Lido in 2003.

When Trace Lysette got to Venice for the premiere of the Andrea Pallaoro-directed drama Monica, she learned that she becomes the first Trans actress to headline a competition film here. Lysette plays the title character, a Trans woman who comes home to care for the mother who rejected her years ago, The young woman has a lot of personal issues she is working through, but among the most frustrating is that the mental faculties of her mother (Patricia Clarkson) are failing along with her health. She doesn’t recognize her child, and Monica tries her best to build a bond as her caretaker. Lysette was a regular in the Amazon series Transparent, and she co-starred with Jennifer Lopez and Constance Wu in Hustlers. But this is her first leading role in a movie. We met at the Excelsior hotel for a Disruptors party thrown by Deadline, Thelios and Guillotine Vodka. It is clear that setting a milestone in Venice is not something Lysette takes lightly.

Giorgio Armani dressed so many stars for the Bones and All premiere at the 2022 Venice Film Festival!

Tessa Thompson is rocking two more looks at the 2022 Venice Film Festival.

Timothee Chalamet is making a fashion statement on the red carpet at the 2022 Venice Film Festival!

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Berlin-based sales outfit M-Appeal has debuted the trailer (below) for the Israeli-Ukrainian drama “Valeria Is Getting Married,” which will have its world premiere in Venice’s Horizons Extra Friday. The film will have its North American premiere at Toronto Film Festival on Sept. 14, where it is part of the Contemporary World Cinema lineup. The film, directed by Israeli female filmmaker Michal Vinik, is shot from the perspective of two Ukrainian sisters, and follows the tense emotional journey that unfolds over the course of one day. Valeria (Dasha Tvoronovich) arrives in Israel to meet the man she is supposed to marry, thanks to a deal made online. She is following in the footsteps of her older sister Christina (Lena Fraifeld), who is happy with her new life in Israel, but Valeria struggles with the decision.

There’s always a great selection of films competing at the Venice Film Festival every year for the coveted Golden Lion. However, the competition at the festival’s 79th edition looks especially fierce.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor The Zurich Film Festival will honor Italian director and screenwriter Luca Guadagnino at its 18th edition, which runs Sept. 22-Oct. 2. He will receive its “A Tribute To…” award on Sept. 30 before the screening of his latest film “Bones and All,” which plays in the Gala Premiere section, and will hold a public masterclass on Oct. 1. The film world premieres in Venice tomorrow. Guadagnino, born in Palermo in 1971, has been one of the most internationally sought-after directors since the success of “Call Me By Your Name” in 2017, which Guadagnino presented in person at the Zurich fest.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor In “The March on Rome,” which world premieres in the Venice Days sidebar of Venice Film Festival Wednesday, Northern Irish-Scottish filmmaker Mark Cousins tracks the ascent of fascism in Italy in the 1920s, and its fall-out across 1930s Europe. He also draws a dotted line from those events to the storming of the Capitol in Washington, D.C., in January 2021. The documentary, illustrated with archive footage and Cousins’ characteristic cinematic analysis, starts with Donald Trump defending his decision to retweet a quote from Italian dictator Benito Mussolini: “It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep.” Later in the film, Cousins inserts footage of Trump supporters attacking the Capitol, hoping to overturn Joe Biden’s electoral victory.

Naman Ramachandran Guy Davidi, known for Sundance and Emmy winning and Oscar nominated documentary “Five Broken Cameras,” is Venice bound with his next film “Innocence.” The film, which is in the festival’s Horizons strand, the only documentary selected in the section, tells the story of children who were unwillingly enlisted into the Israel military service, and many of them died. Through a narration based on their diaries, the film depicts their inner turmoil and interweaves first-hand military images, key moments from childhood until enlistment and home videos of the deceased soldiers. “Nothing touches me more than a child’s sensitivity when they discover the world, and nothing hurts me more than seeing it getting crushed. Israel is not a place that values innocence. Its militarized identity requires the breaking down and distorting of the gentle lines of childhood. This commitment to violence has many victims, but there’s also a hidden tragedy – the collapse of parenthood,” says Davidi in his director’s note on the film, which has been 10 years in the making.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Austrian director David Wagner’s feature debut “Eismayer,” which has its world premiere in Venice Critics’ Week on Sunday, has been picked up for international sales by Paris-based Loco Films. The trailer for the film debuts here (below). In a statement, Loco’s chiefs Laurent Danielou and Arnaud Godart said: “From this true and extraordinary story, [Wagner] managed to make a very subtle and cinematic film.” The film centers on Sergeant Major Eismayer, who is known and feared as the toughest training officer in the Austrian armed forces, ruthless with recruits and unwavering in his discipline, order and macho toughness. But when he starts to fall in love with Falak, a new recruit who unashamedly embraces his homosexuality, Eismayer’s closeted existence is shaken to the core. To a man like Eismayer, loving another man cannot be reconciled with the understanding of what a model soldier should be. Will he choose to protect his badass, tough guy image over all else, or can he follow his heart and his true desire? The film is inspired by a true story.