For the second year in a row, a female director’s feature debut will open Venice Critics’ Week. The independently run Venice sidebar kicked off last year’s screenings with Alice Lowe’s “Prevenge,” a dark comedy about a pregnant woman on a killing spree. This year will launch with Deborah Haywood’s “Pin Cushion.” Described as “a gothic fairy tale set in the British working-class suburbs,” the pic centers on a 13-year-old girl and her dysfunctional relationship with her best friend. A press release has revealed the lineup for the sidebar, and while “Pin Cushion” isn’t screening in Competition, many women-directed films are.
Of seven films in the Critics’ Week Competition program, four are helmed by women, amounting to an impressive 57 percent of the slate. Among the movies screening are Helena Wittmann’s “Drift,” the story of two women who spend a life-changing weekend at the North Sea together, and Natalia Garagiola’s “Hunting Season,” a portrait of a teen boy who recently lost his mother and is put into his father’s custody after they’ve spent ten years apart.
This year’s numbers mark a major improvement from last year’s Critics’ Week, when just one of seven films screened in Competition was directed by a woman, Irene Dionisio’s “Le Ultime Cose.”
Critics’ Week runs during the Venice International Film Festival, which will be held from August 30-September 9 this year. Check out the women-helmed films screening during Critics’ Week below.
COMPETITION
DRIFT
by Helena Wittmann (Germany)
SARAH JOUE UN LOUP GAROU | SARAH PLAYS A WEREWOLF
by Katharina Wyss (Switzerland, Germany)
TEAM HURRICANE
by Annika Berg (Denmark)
TEMPORADA DE CAZA | HUNTING SEASON
by Natalia Garagiola (Argentina, USA, Germany, France, Qatar)
SPECIAL EVENTS — OUT OF COMPETITION
Opening Film
PIN CUSHION
by Deborah Haywood (United Kingdom)
