The Villa Medici Film Festival returns for its second edition! From 14 to 18 September 2022
THE PROGRAMME
The festival is divided into three sections: the International Competition, the Focus films and the Piazzaleopen air screenings.
The International Competition
The festival highlights 14 competition films of different lengths and genres (documentary, fiction, essay), made in 2021-2022 by artists and filmmakers whose works are distinguished by the singularity of their purpose or form. The competition films will be screened during the day in the cinema room and in the Grand Salon of Villa Medici, which reopens its doors for the occasion after six months of restoration work on the Balthus decorations. The directors will be in attendance.
Films in competition:
🎤Intervention by the filmdirector(s) or bya member of the festival committee
•SEE YOU FRIDAY, ROBINSON by Mitra Farahani (2022, France, Switzerland, Iran, Lebanon, 97′) Rome premiere The chronicle of a perhaps impossible cinematographic meeting between Ebrahim Golestan and Jean-Luc Godard, two major artists who do not enjoy the same recognition in the West. VO Farsi, English, French, Italian, German / ST English Screenings: 16.09 – 16:00 18.09– 14.30 🎤
• DE HUMANI CORPORIS FABRICA by Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor (2022, France, 115′) Italian premiere Today, this film delivers the body to cinema. We discover that human flesh is an unheard-of landscape that exists only thanks to the gazes and attentions of others. VO French / ST English Screenings: 16.09 – 18.00 17.09 –14:00 🎤
• GIGI LA LEGGE by Alessandro Comodin (2022, Italy, France, Belgium, 102′) Italian premiere Gigi is a police officer in a countryside village where nothing ever happens. One day, however, a young girl throws herself under a train. This is not the first time. Faced with this wave of inexplicable suicides, Gigi begins to investigate a strange world, between reality and fantasy. VO Italian and Friulian / ST English Screenings: 15.09 – 18:00 🎤 18.09 – 14:00
• HAPPER’S COMET by Tyler Taormina (2022, USA, 62′) Italian premiere One night, the neighbourhood life of the Long Island suburbs at the height of lockdown. Nocturnal life comes alive and many residents quietly escape into the darkness… Without dialogue Screenings: 16.09 – 16:00 🎤 17.09 – 16:30 🎤
•IN FIELDS OF WORDS by Rania Stephan (2022, Lebanon, 70′) World premiere Can cinema and literature reflect the tragedy of war? Dialoguing with Syrian writer Samar Yazbek, the film weaves visual and sound elements to find meaning in the face of the world’s violence. VO Arabic / ST English Screenings: 15.09 – 16:30 17.09 – 18:30 🎤
• INTO THE VIOLET BELLYby Thùy-Hân Nguyến-Chí (2022, Belgium, Germany, Iceland, Malta, 19′) World premiere The chicken is the disguise of the egg. The chicken exists so that the egg can traverse the ages. That’s what a mother is for. The egg lives like a fugitive, always ahead of its time: it is more than contemporary, it belongs to the future. VO Vietnamese and English / STEnglish Screenings: 16.09 – 14:00 🎤 18.09 – 11:00 🎤
• KICKING THE CLOUDS by Sky Hopinka (2021, USA, 15′) Italian premiere A poetic exploration of the filmmaker’s indigenous origin from an audio recording of her grandmother: she tries to learn with her own mother the Pechanga language, already endangered 50 years ago. VO English / ST English Screenings: 16.09 – 14:00 🎤 18.09 – 11:00 🎤
•THE DAM (LE BARRAGE) by Ali Cherri (2022, France, Sudan, Lebanon, Germany, Serbia, Qatar, 80′) Italian premiere Sudan, near the Merowe Dam. Maher works in a brick factory fed by the waters of the Nile. Every evening, he wanders into the desert to build a mysterious earthen building. As the Sudanese people rise up for their freedom, his creation begins to come to life… VO Arabic / ST English Screenings: 15.09 – 14:00 🎤 18.09 – 16:00 🎤
• MANGROVE SCHOOL by Filipa César and Sonia Vaz Borges (2022, France, Portugal, Guinea-Bissau, 34′) Italian premiere A lesson learned and then passed on by the filmmakers after studying the living conditions of students in guerrilla schools in the mangroves of Guinea-Bissau: how does it work? VO Guinean Creole / ST English Screenings: 16.09 – 14:00 🎤 18.09 – 11:00 🎤
• MOUNE Ô by Maxime Jean-Baptiste (2022, French Guiana, France, Belgium, 16′) Italian premiere Through the images of the festivities that accompany the premiere of a film in which the filmmaker’s father plays a small role (Jean Galmot aventurier, 1990), Moune Ô reveals the survival of the colonial heritage within a Western collective unconscious. VO Guyanese Creole / ST English Screenings: 16.09 – 16:00 17.09 – 16:30 🎤
• SAINT OMERby Alice Diop (2022, France, 118′) Rome premiere Rama, a 30-year-old novelist, attends the trial of Laurence Coly, accused of killing her daughter, which will lead her to question the truth of her own experience of motherhood. VO French / ST Italian Screenings: 15.09 – 18:00 17.09 – 11:00🎤
• THE DEMANDS OF ORDINARY DEVOTION by Eva Giolo (2022, Italy, 12′) Italian premiere Built from a game of chance and encounters in Rome’s workshops and houses, this film invites us to reflect on the manufacturing process, the perspective of motherhood, the uncertainties of creation, balance and composition. Without dialogue Screenings: 16.09 – 18:30 17.09 – 14:30 🎤
• WHEN THERE IS NO MORE MUSIC TO WRITE, AND OTHER ROMAN STORIES by Éric Baudelaire (2022, France, Italy, 59′) Italian premiere Three films in one about the figure of avant-garde composer Alvin Curran through his relationship with Rome in the 1960s and 1970s, marked by the kidnapping of politician Aldo Moro and the revolutionary struggle. VO English / STFrench and Italian Screenings: 16.09 – 18:30 17.09 – 14:30 🎤
• XAR – SUEÑO DE OBSIDIANA by Edgar Calel and Fernando Pereira dos Santos (2022, Brazil, 13’14) Italian premiere The Kaqchikel Mayan artist Edgar Calel performs a ritual in the pavilion of the São Paulo Biennale in order to make an offering to his ancestors. Between dreams and memories, his spiritual journey leads him to embody his totem animal. VO Kaqchikel / ST English Screenings: 15.09 – 14:00 🎤 18.09 – 16:00 🎤
The Focus selection
The Focus section presents films by artists out of competition, masterclasses and talks that will allow festival-goers to engage in unique explorations of the art of cinema with the judges, artists and filmmakers.
Focus program:
THE CONTRECHAMPS
• The first “Contrechamps” compares two works that probe contemporary issues. The first is a performance film shot in Nebraska, The New Inflation (2021). The artist Liv Schulman, Villa Medici Fellow in 2022-23, stages a flow of vignettes around the word “inflation” which echoes the jerky editing style of German filmmaker Hans Richter’s Inflation (1928).
Screening: 15.09 – 14:00
• The second one is dedicated to three films by artists who converge around the issue of ruin – past, present and future: Remnants of the Future (2010) by Uriel Orlow,shot in Armenia, is presented alongside two films by Villa Medici Fellows,La Villa Jumelle (2011) by Yasmina Benabderrahmane (Fellow in 2022-23); and Off power(2021) by Théodora Barat (Fellow in 2021-22), shot in Hong Kong.
The festival will also provide opportunities for intimate encounters with the judges presenting their own “carte blanche”.
Marie Losier and Pietro Marcello will both present masterclasses alongside the screening of two documentary films about uncommon love stories: that of artist and musician Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and his partner Lady Jaye in The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye(2011) and The Ontologic Cowboy (2005) by Marie Losier, and that of Enzo and Mary separated by the walls of a prison in Genoa in Pietro Marcello’s La Bocca del Lupo(2009).
•Marie Losier’s carte blanche: THE BALLAD OF GENESIS AND LADY JAYE (2011, USA, 72’) + THE ONTOLOGICAL COWBOY (2005, USA, 16’)
Screening: 17.09 – 11:00🎤
• Pietro Marcello’s carte blanche: LA BOCCA DEL LUPO (2009, Italy, 76′)
Screening: 17.09 – 17:00🎤
• Sylvain Prudhomme’s carte blanche:
Sylvain Prudhomme will present, for the first time, his film co-directed with Philippe Béziat Tout-Puissant Mama Djombo(2022). This personal and musical journey follows Malan Mané, a singer exiled from Guinea-Bissau, who once performed to stadiums full of adoring fans from Dakar to Cuba. It will be accompanied by a reading of excerpts from Sylvain Prudhomme’s novelLes Grands (2014, Gallimard), inspired by the musical group.
TOUT-PUISSANT MAMA DJOMBO(2022, France, 58’)
Screening: 18.09 – 11:00🎤
🎤 Intervention by the director(s)
The Piazzale open air screenings
In parallel with the official competition films screened during the day, festival-goers will enjoy nightlyopen-air screenings on thePiazzale, in front of the historic façade and gardens of Villa Medici, of recent films – including many previews – but also restored classics of cinema.
Piazzale open air screenings :
🎤 Introduction of the film by the filmmaker or by a member of the festival committee
•LA MONTAGNE by Thomas Salavdor (2022, France, 115′) Italian premiere Pierre, a Parisian engineer, heads to the Alps for his work. Irresistibly attracted by the mountains, he sets up a bivouac at high altitude and decides not to come down again. Up there, he meets Léa and discovers mysterious lights. VO French / ST Englishand Italian Screening: 14.09 – 21:00🎤 In the presence of the director.
• LES ENFANTS DES AUTRES by Rebecca Zlotowski (2022, France, 104′) Roman premiere Rachel is 40 and loves her life: her high school students, her friends, her exes, her guitar lessons. When she falls in love with Ali, she becomes attached to Leila, his 4-year-old daughter. She tucks her in at night, cares for her and loves her as her own. But loving other people’s children comes with a risk. VO French / ST Italian Screening: 15.09 – 21:00 In the presence of the director.
•PADRE PIOby Abel Ferrara (2022, Germany, Italy, UK , 104′) Roman premiere It is the end of the First World War and young Italian soldiers return to San Giovanni Rotondo, a poor land over which the church and rich landowners exercise unchallenged dominion. Padre Pio also arrives to begin his ministry. The eve of the first free elections in Italy is the prelude to a massacre that will change the course of history. VO English/ ST Italian Screening: 16.09 – 21:00 In the presence of the director.
• STELLA EST AMOUREUSE by Sylvie Verheyde (2022, France, 110′) Roman premiere For Stella, it’s her final year in high school. But she says she doesn’t care. That year, she discovers the famous Parisian club, the Bains Douches, the 80’s and its crazy nights. Her friends are just studying, her father has left with another woman and her mother is depressed. And then there is Andre who dances like a God. That year will decide herwhole life. VO French / ST Italian Screening: 17.09 – 21:00 In the presence of the director.
• SCIUSCIÀ by Vittorio De Sica (1946, Italy, 87′) Rome, 1945. Pasquale and Giuseppe are two boys bound by a sincere friendship who, in the turmoil of the post-war period, indulge in lucrative, though not entirely legal, activities. Involved in a burglary, they are sent to a reformatory to await trial. Their life in the reformatory becomes increasingly painful, until their friendship falters. Sciuscià, a masterpiece of Italian neo-realism and winner of the 1947 Oscar for Best Foreign Film, is presented for the first time in Rome in its restored version. VO Italian / ST French Screening: 18.09 – 21:00 In the presence of Gianluca Farinelli (Cineteca di Bologna) and of the actor Rinaldo Smordoni.
THE JURY
This year, the panel is composed of three figures from the world of cinema, visual arts and literature:
Marie Losier is a film director and producer born in 1972 in Boulogne-Billancourt (France). After 20 years working in New York, she is now based in Paris. She produces avant-garde, intimate and poetic portraits of filmmakers, musicians and artists such as Alan Vega, the Kuchar brothers, Guy Maddin, Richard Foreman, Tony Conrad and April March. Her work has been presented at the Cannes Film Festival, the Berlinale, the Tate Modern, the MoMA, the Palais de Tokyo, the Pompidou Centre, the Whitney Museum, the Jeu de Paume, the Pernod Ricard Foundation, the Cinémathèque Française and the Greek Film Archive. →Read the full biography
Pietro Marcello is an Italian film director born in Caserta in 1976. His first feature film, Il Passaggio della linea, a documentary shot at night on Italian express trains, was presented in 2007 at the Venice Film Festival in the Orizzontisection and won numerous awards when it was released. In 2009, he directed the dramatic documentary La Bocca del Lupo, which won the prize for best film at the 27th Turin Film Festival, the Caligari Prize, and the Teddy Award at the Berlinale. →Read the full biography
Sylvain Prudhomme was born in 1979 in La Seyne-sur-Mer (France). An author of novels and reportage, he received the Femina prize in 2019 for his novel Par les routes(published by Gallimard). His work draws on lived realities from around the world and exists at the crossroads of documentary and fiction. Modern Africa — where he lived and worked for a long time (Senegal, Niger, Burundi, Mauritius) — is one of the main sources of inspiration for his books. He has translated the essay La Décolonisation de l’esprit by the Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o (La Fabrique, 2011). →Read the full biography
At the end of the festival week, two prizes will be awarded by the judges during a closing evening that brings audience and artists together: the Villa Medici Prize for best film and the Jury Prize for a film that has caught the judges’ attention. The winning filmmakers will be offered the opportunity of a residency at Villa Medici.
The Festival Team
Leonardo Bigazzi (Selection committee) is curator of the Festival Lo Schermo dell’Arte (2008-ongoing) and VISIO – European Programme on Artists’ Moving Images (2012-ongoing). Since 2020 he has also been working as a curator at the Fondazione In Between Art Film, where he is responsible for commissioning and producing artists’ films.
Farah Clémentine Dramani-Issifou (Selection committee) is an exhibition curator, film festival programmer (Semaine de la Critique – Cannes Festival, Marrakech International Film Festival) and researcher. She teaches at the HEAD in Geneva. Her research-creation work focuses on Afro-diaporic cinema and visual arts.
Mathilde Henrot (Selection committee) is a producer of art films (namely of the art films of artist Camille Henrot) and a curator, namely of the Locarno and Sarajevo film festivals. She is also the founder of the websites Festival Scope and Festival Scope Pro, along with Alessandro Raja.
Lili Hinstin (Organizing Committee & Selection Committee) is a programmer and artistic director. In charge of cinema at Villa Medici between 2005 and 2009, she became a programmer for the Cinéma du Réel festival from 2010 to 2013. Lili Hinstin then became artistic director of the Belfort Film Festival (2013-2018), then of the Locarno Film Festival (2018-2020).
Laurent Perreau (Organizing committee) is an author and director for cinema and television. He also stages visual art projects for the Rencontres d’Arles Festival.
Sam Stourdzé (Organizing Committee) specializes in images and the relationships between art, photography and cinema. He is the curator of numerous exhibitions and author of several reference books. Since 2020, he is the director of the French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici.
Véronique Terrier Hermann (Organizing Committee) is a teacher and responsible for the Support Program for Research (Beaux-arts de Nantes, Institute for Photography in Lille). She notably co-directed Jeux sérieux, cinéma et art contemporains transforment l’essai, Head / Mamco editions, 2015.
THE WINNING FILMS
On Saturday 17 September at 8.30 p.m., on the stage set up on the Piazzale, the awards ceremony for the second international competition of the Villa Medici Film Festival, dedicated to works that explore contemporary practices of the moving image, took place.
VILLA MEDICI PRIZE FOR BEST FILM THE FIELDS OF WORDS, Rania Stephan
Premiering in the world in the occasion of the festival, The fields of words wins the Villa Medici Prize for Best Film. Rania Stephan, born in Lebanon, navigates between video art and creative documentary. Can cinema and literature capture the tragedy of war? In dialogue with Syrian writer Samar Yazbek, her film weaves visual and sound elements together to make sense of the violence in the world. The winner receives a prize of 5,000 euros and a creative residency at Villa Medici.
SPECIAL PRIZE OF THE JURY GIGI LA LEGGE, Alessandro Comodin
Alessandro Comodin, who works in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, where he grew up. His film tells the story of Gigi, a rural police officer in a village where nothing ever happens. One day however, a young girl throws herself under a train. This is not the first time that this has happened. Facing this unexplainable suicide wave, Gigi starts investigating a strange world, between reality and fantasy. The winner receives a prize of 3,000 euros and a creative residency at Villa Medici.
“For the power of the object; the charisma, the commitment, the sometimes raw sincerity of the character and the evocation of exile; the love between the director and the extraordinary woman she films; the strength of the testimony that this film represents and all that it makes us understand about the difficulty and exhaustion of bearing witness; the emotion of Samar Yazbek’s words and of this portrait that gives meaning to the gesture of continuing to create, we are happy to award the prize for Best Film to Rania Stephan for her film The fields of words. “
“For the delicacy, humour and generosity; the elegance and grace of the direction; the beauty and tranquillity of the character; the gentle madness of the embodiment of the law, and to send our best wishes to this man we would like to meet every day, we award the Jury Prize to Alessandro Comodin for Gigi la legge.”
The jury (Marie Losier, Pietro Marcello et Sylvain Prudhomme)
PARTNERS OF THE FESTIVAL
The Villa Medici Film Festival would like to thank the partners who are supporting its second edition:
