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72nd Venice Film Festival- Two Italian Films Chosen for the International Critics’ Week

Antonio Capuano's "Bagnoli Jungle"
The program for the 30th edition of the International Critics’ Week (SIC), an independent section of the Venice International Film Festival, was announced in Rome.

There will be seven films total, all of which will be global premieres. Those seven will be in competition while another three films will be shown out of competition. The week will end with Italian film "Bagnoli Jungle" by Antonio Capuano.

According to the General Delegate Francesco Di Pace, in 1991, Critics’ Week was won by Antonio Capuano’s film "Vito and the Others". Twenty-four years later, Capuano returns to SIC with his latest film, Bagnoli Jungle, "the umpteenth example of his expressive freedom and courage".

Set among the ruins of a once thriving area, the film follows Giggino, Antonio and Marco, three generations that, throughout the chapters of the story, only occasionally cross paths. The three characters are immersed in a chaotic world of street musicians, house painters, nuns, gangsters, and starving migrants in what has become a contaminated, empty jungle.

Di Pace also explained that the opening and closing film themes are "Families on rocky ground, teenage unease and parental conflict, generations that come to blows not only in private but in the political sphere too, disorientation caused by the economic crisis that triggers people to make radical choices in their lives. This year the seven films being shown in competition will be accompanied, in an unexpected turn of events, by another, pre-opening, film, a powerful piece lasting 4 hours and 40 minutes entitled Jia (The Family)".

Below is the complete list of films that will be shown in SIC:



In competition



Ana yurdu (Motherland)

by Senem Tuzen - Turkey, Greece 2015 / 98’



Banat (Il viaggio)

by Adriano Valerio - Italy, Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia 2015 / 82’



Kalo Pothi (The Black Hen)

by Min Bahadur Bham - Nepal, France, Germany 2015 / 86’



Light Years

by Esther May Campbell - United Kingdom 2015 / 90'



Montanha

by João Salaviza - Portugal, France 2015 / 100'



The Return

by Green Zeng - Singapore 2015 / 80'



Tanna 
by Martin Butler, Bentley Dean - Australia, Vanuatu 2015 / 104'



Special events – out of competition



Jia (The Family)

by Liu Shumin - China, Australia 2015 / 280'
Pre-opening film



Orphans
by Peter Mullan - United Kingdom 1998 / 95'
Opening film



Bagnoli Jungle 
by Antonio Capuano - Italy 2015 / 100'

Closing film

 

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