Venice Film Festival 2025 – An interstellar guide by Simone Bozzelli

L’Étranger – In Competition

Director: François Ozon

A title that evokes Camus and carries with it Ozon’s profound elegance. Ozon is a tireless filmmaker, capable of weaving unsettling surprises into the most elegant plots. I believe he won’t disappoint us.

The Voice of Hind Rajab – In Competition

Director: Kaouther Ben Hania

Here it’s not just cinema: it’s resistance, it’s testimony, it’s the fragile body of a child becoming a collective voice. At the press conference, Alberto Barbera could not hold back his tears: the emotion wasn’t protocol, it was real pain. Hind Rajab’s tears become the tears of the world: not private, but universal. 🇵🇸

Bugonia – In Competition

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos

Two young men kidnap a CEO, convinced she’s an alien bent on destroying the world. A farcical plot, but in Lanthimos’ hands, the absurd becomes a necessary allegory. It’s intriguing to see him tackle a remake (Save the Green Planet! by Jang Joon-hwan, 2003): a risky exercise (but thankfully so, I’d say!) for a director who usually works on original universes. Will this be the chance to reinvent a Korean cult film, or to confront the limits of his own poetics?
If it’s even half as good as Kinds of Kindness, it will still be a gift of cinema.

The Testament of Ann Lee – In Competition

Director: Mona Fastvold

An epic fable inspired by the life of Ann Lee, founder of the Shakers, a radical religious movement born at the end of the 18th century. Not the first title I would have chosen, I admit: I hesitated until the last moment whether to include it in this list.
But there is something magnetic in this cinematic promise: a communal utopia, faith becoming ritual, life transforming into legend. And here we are.

Dead Man’s Wire – Out of Competition

Director: Gus Van Sant

Van Sant out of competition is a paradox, a murder of my soul. But perhaps his freedom also lies here: not having to compete, not having to prove anything. The story of a man suspended between life and death after an electrical accident promises to be a poem about the threshold. Each of his films is a piece of personal memory: this one too will become part of ours.

Barrio Triste – Orizzonti

Director: Stillz

Teenagers filming their own thefts and arson in Medellín, until inexplicable lights tear through reality. The digital becomes obsession, noir becomes collective ritual. With Arca on the soundtrack, Stillz’s debut promises a disturbing, visceral visual experience. I already dream of its new, untamed language.

Il rapimento di Arabella – Orizzonti

Director: Carolina Cavalli

A kidnapping that evolves into the surreal, between bittersweet irony and modern solitude. Cavalli is a vivid and original talent. Elsinore Film, which had already shown with Amanda that it knows how to bet on new voices, proves once again to be one of the boldest and most interesting players in the Italian scene. I hope this renewed collaboration brings another small epiphany, breathing freely and without compromise.

Il magnifico cornuto – Venezia Classics (restoration)

Director: Antonio Pietrangeli (1964)

Watching Pietrangeli restored is an act of gratitude. Jealousy, desire, bitter comedy: rediscovering them today is rediscovering fragments of our history. Seeing Tognazzi and Cardinale in a restored copy is not just nostalgia: it is an act of cultural memory.

Writing Life – Annie Ernaux Through the Eyes of High School Students – Giornate degli Autori

Director: Claire Simon

Telling Annie Ernaux through the eyes of teenagers is a simple and brilliant gesture. Ernaux transformed private life into political matter; high schoolers, in looking at her, can transform politics into private life. I imagine this film as fragile, tender, necessary: a Nobel writer filtered through the gaze of those just learning to read the world.

Restare (Remains) – Settimana Internazionale della Critica, Opening Film

Director: Fabio Bobbio

Two brothers, a loss, the family home emptying out. After I cormorani, Bobbio returns with a short that promises to be small and silent. Restare is not just a title: it is an ethical gesture, a posture. To remain within pain, to remain in the places that shaped us, to remain when everything urges us to leave.

Confiteor. How I Discovered I Wouldn’t Make the Revolution – Notti Veneziane

Director: Bonifacio Angius

The title is already a manifesto, already a story: political confession, disappointment, memory. Angius always works with the raw matter of disillusionment, turning it into collective confession rather than sterile solitude. After Perfidia, Ovunque proteggimi and I giganti, Confiteor seems the natural step in a journey: from private to political, from personal failure to generational failure. Angius is one of the Italian filmmakers who most interest me, and who deserves far more attention. But sometimes I like to think he’s only there for me, like a secret to keep.