The line-up of the titles competing for Queer Lion Award is possible thanks to the precious, direct support from the è different selecting committees of the International Venice Film Festival.
Eligible for the QL Award competition are all the movies whose length is of at least 30 minutes, and with meaningful LGBT themes and characters.
For the 2020 selection, special thanks to Alberto Barbera and Angela Savoldi (for all the section of the official program: Venezia 77, Fuori Concorso, Orizzonti); Paolo Bertolin (Orizzonti); Valentina Bellomo (Biennale College); Mariachiara Manci (Venice Virtual Reality); Giorgio Gosetti, Gaia Furrer, Renata Santoro, Francesco Bonerba (Giornate degli Autori); Giona A. Nazzaro, Eddie Bertozzi (Settimana Internazionale della Critica).
SYNOPSES, CAST & CREDITS
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The World to Come by Mona Fastvold (Usa, 98’, 2020)
Cast: Katherine Waterston, Vanessa Kirby, Christopher Abbott, Casey Affleck
1850: in a farm in the State of New York, Abigail and Dyer just lost their only daughter to diphtheria. Still grieving, Abigail meets Tally and her husband Finney, her new neighbors. The two women thus form an increasing bond of intimacy and passionate devotion. Once their husbands start to understand the intensity and nature of their relationship, the situation soon gets out of control.
Presented in Venezia 77
Und morgen die ganze Welt (And Tomorrow the Entire World) by Julia von Heinz (Germany, France, 101’, 2020)
Cast: Mala Emde, Noah Saavedra, Tonio Schneider, Luisa-Céline Gaffron, Andreas Lust
Luisa, a 20-year-old law student, joins a cell of the Antifa group when she and her friends Alfa and Lenor get to know about an upcoming attack planned by a local neo-Nazi gang. As they try to find out more, the three youngsters delve deeper into the scene linked to right-wing movements and their political connections, to the point where they will understand how much they are willing to go further, in order to defend their own beliefs.
Presented in Venezia 77
Laila in Haifa by Amos Gitai (Israel, France, 99’, 2020)
Cast: Tsahi Halevi, Maria Zreik, Khawla Ibraheem, Bahira Ablassi, Naama Preis, Hana Laszlo
The film was shot entirely in a nightclub, with an adjoining contemporary art gallery, whose customers are both Israelis and Palestinians, in one of Israel’s most open cities, Haifa. A long night in a place where the most diverse people meet: Jews, Muslims, gays, heterosexuals, transvestites; and three women, who in that multifaceted microcosm, a gathering peaceful hideout, can find shelter from male bullying and arrogance.
Presented in Venezia 77
Terrain by Lily Baldwin, Saschka Unseld, Kumar Atre (Usa, Germany, Switzerland, 45’, 2020)
Terrain is a journey into the Bardo: an otherworldly space between lives where we find an array of souls from across the world. We slip and at once fall in, leaving the everyday behind. This docu-dream is a story without words using the language of movement. Through a vivid and surreal landscape, each person encounters a series of distinct individuals and slowly rediscovers a larger collective body. Terrain is a dancing unison of difference. Our bodies bridge gaps between worlds, and with this we invent a new kind of non-verbal truth. This new interconnectedness propels us back to life again, essentialized by our shared sense of interbeing.
Presented in Venice Virtual Reality
Tengo miedo torero (My Tender Matador) by Rodrigo Sepúlveda (Chile, Argentina, Mexico, 93’, 2020)
Cast: Alfredo Castro, Leonardo Ortizgris, Julieta Zylberberg, Sergio Hernández
Amid the political turmoil during the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile in the 1980s, a mature queer lady engages in a risky clandestine operation after falling in love with a guerrilla who asks her to hide dangerous secrets of the revolution at home. Film adaptation of the first and only novel written by essayist, chronicler, and novelist Pedro Lemebel, iconic figure of the LGBT culture.
Presented in Giornate degli Autori
Saint-Narcisse by Bruce LaBruce (Canada, Belgium, Luxembourg, 101’, 2020)
Cast: Félix-Antoine Duval, Tania Kontoyanni, Alexandra Petrachuk, Andreas Apergis
Canada, 1972. Dominic, 22 years old, has a fetish… for himself. Nothing turns him on more than his reflection, with much of his time spent taking Polaroid self portraits. When his loving grandmother dies, he discovers a deep family secret: his lesbian mother didn’t die in childbirth and he has a twin brother, Daniel, raised in a remote monastery by a depraved priest. The power of destiny brings back together the two beautiful, identical brothers, who, after being reunited with their mother Beatrice, are soon embroiled in a strange web of sex, revenge and redemption.
Presented in Giornate degli Autori
Queer Lion this year pays tribute to “The Children’s Hour”, the 1961 masterpiece directed for the screen by William Wyler and based on the play by Lillian Hellman.
In the reimagining, illustrated by Francesco Gangemi, Karen and Martha – bound for a different epilogue in the movie – live a long, happy life and lovingly age together.
