Venice Film Festival’s independently run Venice Days section has announced its 2019 lineup. Four of 11 features in competition are directed or co-directed by women, amounting to about 36 percent of the program. Among the titles set to screen is “Lingua Franca,” a drama about a transgender immigrant from Isabel Sandoval. The transgender U.S.-based Filipino writer, director, and actress has emphasized that it’s important to “openly tackle life for immigrants in Trump’s America.”
The other women-directed features in competition are Fabienne Berthaud’s “A Bigger World,” about a woman who discovers she has shamanistic abilities, Manele Labidi Labbe’s “Arab Blue,” the story of a psychoanalyst who opens a practice in Tunisia, and Mattie Do’s “The Long Walk,” a portrait of a Laotian hermit who embarks on an epic journey through time.
The Venice Days competition winner gets a €20,000 (around $22,300 USD) cash prize.
Of six films screening in the Special Events section, exactly zero are directed by women. Just one of five titles in the Venetian Nights program hails from a woman director, “Sufficiente,” co-directed by Maddalena Stornaiuolo.
Venice Days includes Women’s Tales Project, a collection of shorts from women filmmakers. Hailey Gates’ “#17 Shako Mako” and Lynne Ramsay’s “#18 Brigitte” will screen.
Venice Days will take place August 28-September 7.
