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- Snow Leopard by Pema Tseden
- Vivants by Alix Delaporte
- Znam Kako Dišeš (I know your soul) di Alen Drljević, Nermin Hamzagić
SNOW LEOPARD
Venezia 80 – Out of competition
Xue bao, Cina, 2023. Regia Pema Tseden. Con Jinpa, Xiong Ziqi, Tseten Tashi, Losang Choepel, Genden Phuntsok, Kunde, Dang Haoyu, Jikba, Gatu Tashi, Dechen Yangdzom, Chungchen. Durata 1h e 49’.
“The Tibetan people believe in the death of the flesh and the continuation of the soul. When the Buddhist faith collides with the reality of modern society, we find ourselves having to make a choice.” So said Pema Tseden at the time when, in the Horizons section of the Venice Film Festival in 2019, her feature film Balloon (Qiqiu) was presented in competition. And Tibetan culture pervades the director’s entire filmography, certainly not excluding Snow Leopard (Xue bao), his feature film Out of competition at the Lido this year. The filmmaker (also screenwriter, producer and writer) sadly passed away on May 8 at the age of 53, but even without believing in the immortality of the soul we can affirm that a part of him will continue to live on in the poetry of the works he has created . In the latter, we talk about the relationship between men and animals, a theme already touched upon by Pema (think of the sheep run over by the truck driver by Jinpa, Best Screenplay at Horizons 2018). This time, a nomadic shepherd and his son discuss the fate of a snow leopard, which penetrated their sheep pen and killed nine of them. The parent would like to remove and leave the animal free, the other would like to kill it. However the story will end, Snow Leopard will not be the last work that we will see of Pema Tseden: before his death, in fact, the director had time to shoot a new film, edited by his collaborators. And all the production of an author who managed to make his voice heard in the world should be rediscovered despite the not always easy relations with the authorities of his own country, China: in 2016 (the year in which his Tharlo competed in Venice for the Golden Lion), Pema was arrested at Xining airport (the charge was “disturbing the peace”) and had to be hospitalized following the beatings he suffered.
Di Emanuele Bucci
VIVANTS
Out of Competition
France, Belgium, 2023 Director Alix Delaporte Cast Alice Isaaz, Roschdy Zem, Vincent Elbaz, Pascale Arbillot, Pierre Lottin, Jean-Charles Clichet Running Time 86’
It is a tribute to her first work, that of photojournalist French director Alix Delaporte’s Vivants, selected among the out-of-competition films of this Venice 80. Before finding a vocation as a director and screenwriter, Delaporte worked as a reporter and cameraman at the CAPA agency, for which she collaborated on several television programs. She drew from this work experience to direct a story, Vivants, set in the same world, in which we find the protagonist, Gabrielle, trying to emerge within a prestigious news network. Without proper training, Gabrielle must prove herself and find her place within a group of highly experienced special correspondents. In the thick of the action, she will learn the language and code of reporters, always passionate, often funny and sometimes scarred by life and their profession. “Like my characters, I debuted in the role of photojournalist, filming life as it flows and relying on instinct to ride its unpredictable flow,” the director recounted, explaining how the “top priority was to recreate rapidity of action to capture the tangle of rarefied emotions and amplified human bonds that are created in the field.”
A vibrancy that also distinguishes Delaporte’s filmography, in which works of different genres and different footage appear. It is not his first appearance in Venice: in 2006, he won the Golden Lion for best short film with Comment on freine dans una descente? In 2014, the movie Le Dernier Coup de marteau – presented in Competition – earned the Marcello Mastroianni prize for young actor Romain Paul.
Claudia Giampaolo
ZNAM KAKO DIŠEŠ (I KNOW YOUR SOUL)
Director da Alen DRLJEVIĆ, cast NERMIN HAMZAGIC Durata 87 min
It is of the crime genre Znam Kako Dišeš (I know your soul), the out-of-competition series created by Jasmila Zbanic and Damir Ibrahimovic, directed by Alen Drljević and Nermin Hamzagic, and starring Jasna Đuričić, Lazar Dragojević, Ermin Bravo, Mirvad Kurić, Emir Hadžihafizbegović, Selma Alispahić, Boris Isaković, Jasna Žalica, Kemal Rizvanović, Jelena Kordić, Tanja Šojić, Boris Ler, Faketa Salihbegović Avdagić, Izudin Bajrović, Lana Stanišić, Dino Bajrović. In the six episodes, a Sarajevo stewardess follows the case of a boy who committed suicide and, at the same time, faces a series of problems spreading through the streets. Of interest to Jasmila Zbanić has always been the people of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the protagonist of her many films, including Quo vadis, Aida? with which she had already been to Venice. The Sarajevo-born director and screenwriter makes no secret that she wants to use cinema to explore problems and issues related to her life, striving each time to create characters that are not just “black and white since real people are not so simple.”
Tiziana Leone
