L’Armée du salut (SALVATION ARMY) by Abdellah Taïa

Nine films, including seven in competition, have been selected for the 28th Venice International Film Critics’ Week,  August 28 through Sept. 7, 2013. The seven films in competition are eligible for two awards – RaroVideo Audience Award and the USD$100,000 Lion of the Future – “Luigi De Laurentiis” Award for a Debut Film. The week of screenings will open with world premiere of the Italian film L’arte della felicità (THE ART OF HAPPINESS) by Alessandro Rak and close with International Premiere of the Chilean film Las analfabetas (ILLITERATE) by Moisés Sepúlveda.

The seven films in competition:

L’Armée du salut (SALVATION ARMY) 
by Abdellah Taïa
France-Morocco, 2013 – World Premiere

Cast: Said Mrini (young Abdellah), Karim Ait M’hand (adult Abdellah), Amine Ennaji (Slimane).

In Casablanca, the young Abdellah spends his days at home, living a relationship of conflicts and complicity with his father. In the city streets, he has occasional sexual intercourse with men. During a holiday, his older and venerated brother Slimane abandons him. Ten years later Abdellah lives with his Swiss lover, Jean. He leaves Morocco and goes to Geneva,  where he decides to break up and to start a new life alone.  He takes shelter in a house of the Salvation Army, where a Moroccan man sings a song of his idol Abdel Halim Hafez for him.

Återträffen (THE REUNION)
by Anna Odell
Sweden, 2013 – World Premiere

Cast: Anna Odell.

Swedish artist Anna Odell invites us to a grim class reunion with a twist. What happens when old hierarchies and truths are questioned from an unexpected voice? This film investigates how far, too far reality is. It traverses the border between fiction and reality with Odell playing the main character, using her own identity and life story to go into unspoken and invisible hierarchical structure. By processing the story in multiple layers, the complexity of power and exclusion is revealed and the dynamics of the group is exposed.

Las Niñas Quispe (THE QUISPE GIRLS)
by Sebastián Sepúlveda
France-Argentina, 2013 – World Premiere

Cast: Digna Quispe (Justa), Catalina Saavedra (Lucía), Francisca Gavilán (Luciana), Alfredo Castro (Fernando). 

Based on a true story occurred in 1974, this is the tale of sisters Justa, Lucia, and Luciana Quispe, sheperds in the Chilean altiplano who lead a solitary life. A visitor brings news about a law that might change their way of living. This event forces the women to question their existence and relentlessly brings them to a tragic end. 

Razredni sovražnik (CLASS ENEMY)
by Rok Biček
Slovenia, 2013 – World Premiere

Cast: Igor Samobor (Robert), Nataša Barbara Gračner (Zdenka), Tjaša Železnik (Saša), Maša Derganc (Nuša), Robert Prebil (Matiaž), Voranc Boh (Luka), Jan Zupančič (Tadej), Daša Cupevski (Sabina).  

Due to a huge difference in the way they perceive life, the relationship between the students and their new German language teacher becomes critically tense. When one of the students commits suicide, her classmates accuse the teacher of being responsible for her death. The realisation that things are not so black and white comes too late.

WHITE SHADOW
by Noaz Deshe
Germany-Tanzania, 2013 – World Premiere

Cast: Hamis Bazili (Alias), James Gayo (Kosmos), Glory Madgalena Cyril Mbaywayu (Antoinette), Salum Abdallah (Salum), Tito David Ntanga (Father), Riziki Ally (Mother), James D. Salala (Adin), John Samuel Makipunda (Anulla). 

Since 2008, albinos in Tanzania have become human targets. Witch doctors offer huge sums of cash for their body parts to be used in magic potions. From 2008 to 2010, more than 200 witch-doctor inspired murders occurred. As a local saying goes: “Albinos do not die, they just disappear.” This is the story of Alias, an albino boy on the run. After his father’s murder, his mother sends him to the city. His uncle Kosmos, a truck driver, takes care of him. Alias learns fast in the city, selling sunglasses, DVDs, and mobile phones. He is attracted to Antoinette, his uncle’s daughter, but her father totally disapproves. However, Alias will soon be noticed for the color of his skin.

Zoran, il mio nipote scemo (ZORAN, MY NEPHEW THE IDIOT)
by Matteo Oleotto
Italy-Slovenia, 2013 – World Premiere

Cast: Giuseppe Battiston (Paolo), Teco Celio (Gustino), Rok Presnikar (Zoran), Marjuta Slamic (Stefania), Roberto Citran (Alfio), Riccardo Maranzana (Ernesto), Jan Cvitokovic (Jure), Ariella Reggio (Clara). 

Paolo, 40 years old, lives in a small Friulian town close to the north-eastern border. Unreliable and with a passion for good wine, he spends his days at the local tavern and stubbornly stalks his ex-wife. One day, unexpectedly, he meets his nephew Zoran, an awkward 16-year-old boy grown up in the Slovenian mountains. Reluctantly, Paolo has to take care of him, but he soon discovers Zoran’s bizarre gift: he is phenomenal master of darts. Paolo thinks this is the right chance to take revenge on the world. But will everything be so easy?

Surprise Film

Opening Film – Special Event Out of Competition
L’arte della felicità (THE ART OF HAPPINESS)
by Alessandro Rak
Italy, 2013 – World Premiere

Two brothers. Two continents. Two lives. One single soul. Under a gloomy sky, between apocalyptic premonitions in a Naples at its utmost decay, Sergio, a taxi driver, receives a shocking news. Nothing will be the same as before. Now Sergio looks himself in the mirror and what he sees is a forty-year-old man who has turned his back on music and got lost in the limbo of his city. While a storm is raging outside, a crowd of memories, hopes, regrets and presences begins to populate his cab. Sooner or later the rain will stop and the sky will open up again. And the end will come. Or the music will be back.

Closing Film – Special Event Out of Competition
Las analfabetas (ILLITERATE)
by Moisés Sepúlveda
Chile, 2013 – International Premiere

Cast: Paulina García (Ximena), Valentina Muhr (Jackeline).

50-year-old Ximena has learned to live on her own to keep her illiteracy as a secret. 26-year-old Jackeline, an unemployed teacher, offers to read the news for her. The young woman soon tries to teach her reading, but this new task looks quite complicated. One day, Jackeline finds a letter that Ximena has been keeping as her only treasure: a message her father had left before abandoning her many years before. Due to this mystery, the two women embarks in a learning process in which the role of the teacher and that of the student will continuously reverse.