Giornate degli Autori has announced the full lineup for its 22nd edition, taking place August 27 to September 6 during the 2025 Venice Film Festival. The independently run sidebar, known for showcasing emerging voices and politically conscious filmmaking, returns under the theme ‘Collective Memory and Individual Truths' with a slate that spans 20 countries and blends fiction, documentary, and hybrid forms.
Artistic director Gaia Furrer presented a program anchored by ten world premieres in the official competition, one closing film out of competition, five Special Events, and nine Italian-produced features screening as part of the Venetian Nights series, organized in collaboration with Isola Edipo. Two short films also screen in the Miu Miu Women’s Tales section.
This year’s edition maintains the sidebar’s focus on narrative documentaries and formally inventive storytelling, with works tackling themes of personal history, exile, adolescence, and the political power of memory.
“In the stories we present this year, what often surfaces is a stubborn attempt to patch up the ruptures with our past, with the Other, with ourselves,” Furrer said. “Love becomes an act of rebellion; memory and remembrance a political gesture; childhood and adolescence, times of truth.”
Opening the competition is “Memory,” a personal documentary by Ukrainian filmmaker Vladlena Sandu, which revisits the filmmaker’s childhood through fragmented recollections of war and trauma.
Titles in the main competition include “Short Summer,” by Russian director Nastia Korkia, now living in exile in Germany, which takes place where the specter of war looms in subtle but corrosive ways.
Spanish director Gabriel Azorín plays with time in “Last Night I Conquered the City of Thebes,” in which characters both modern and from antiquity meet symbolically in a space outside time.
Kenyan director Damien Hauser’s “Memory of Princess Mumbi” is set in the year 2093 in a fictionalized Africa, where a young filmmaker sets out to document a global conflict that erupted two decades earlier after humans handed control over to artificial intelligence.
Firouzeh Khosrovani (“Radiograph of a Family”) and Morteza Ahmadvand present “Past Future Continuous,” in which a woman in exile monitors her aging parents in Tehran solely through security cameras, unable to return after fleeing the Islamic Revolution.
The second Iranian title, “Inside Amir” by Amir Azizi, is a love letter to the city of Tehran and a personal exploration of the doubts that surface before the act of leaving one’s own country.
Mexican actress Mayra Hermosillo makes her directorial debut with “Vainilla,” set in a crowded household in 1980s northern Mexico, where several generations of women live together.
Cyril Aris’ “A Sad and Beautiful World” spans three decades of Lebanese history, following a romantic relationship between a man and woman born on the same day during wartime, separated and later reunited by chance.
In the Greek feature “Bearcave,” co-directed by Krysianna B. Papadakis and Stergios Dinopoulos, two women confront unspoken feelings for one another amid the patriarchal traditions of their rural village.
Neapolitan filmmaker Nicolangelo Gelormini presents “La Gioia,” the only Italian film in competition, about two women whose lives intersect in Turin through their connection to a young man.
Five films from the Special Events lineup expands the scope of the official selection: “Laguna” by Lithuanian auteur Sharunas Bartas, “Writing Life” from French documentarian Claire Simon, “Who Is Still Alive” by Swiss director Nicolas Wadimoff, “Do You Love Me“ by Lana Daher, and “The Peaceful Life” (“Il quieto vivere”) from Gianluca Matarrese.
Closing the lineup, screening out of competition, is Gianni Di Gregorio’s “Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don’t,” marking his return to the Lido following his 2008 debut “Mid-August Lunch,” which won the Lion of the Future. The comedy centers on a retired professor whose routine is upended by the arrival of his daughter and grandchildren.
As in past years, the competition jury will award the €20,000 GdA Director’s Award. This year’s jury is led by Norwegian filmmaker Dag Johan Haugerud, who won the Golden Bear at the 2025 Berlinale. He is joined by “Vermiglio” producer Francesca Andreoli, MoMA film curator Josh Siegel, cinematographer Sofian El Fani, and Franco-Palestinian filmmaker Lina Soualem.
The Sala Perla audience will vote on the Giornate Audience Award, while the Europa Cinemas jury will select the Label winner among the European titles in the official selection.
Giornate degli Autori 2025 Full Lineup:
Competition
- “Memory” (Opening Film)
Director: Vladlena Sandu
Production: LIMITLESS
France, Netherlands - “La Gioia”
Director: Nicolangelo Gelormini
Production: HT Film Srl
Italy - “Bearcave”
Director: Stergios Dinopoulos, Krysianna Papadakis
Production: Pucci Productions
Greece, UK - “Short Summer”
Director: Nastia Korkia
Production: TamTam
Germany, France, Serbia - “A Sad and Beautiful World”
Director: Cyril Aris
Production: Abbout Productions
Lebanon, USA, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Qatar - “Past Future Continous”
Directors: Firouzeh Khosrovani e Morteza Ahmadvand
Production: Fifi Film, Antipode Films, Zalab films
Iran, Norway, Italy - “Memory of Princess Mumbi”
Director: Damien Hauser
Kenya, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland - “Vainilla”
Director: Mayra Hermosillo
Production: REDRUM
Mexico - “Last Night I Conquered the City of Thebes”
Director: Gabriel Azorín
Production: DVEIN FILMS
Spain, Portugal - “Inside Amir”
Director: Amir Azizi
Production: Amir Azizi, ELham Azizi, Ali Azizi
Special Events
- “Laguna”
Director: Sharunas Bartas
Production: KinoElektron
Lithuania, France - “Writing Life – Annie Ernaux Through the Eyes of High School Students”
Director: Claire Simon
Production: ROSEBUD PRODUCTIONS
France - “The Peaceful Life – A Tragic Comedy About Hate, Family, and Other Quiet Things”
Director: Gianluca Matarrese
Production: Faber Produzioni
Italy - “Who Is Still Alive”
Director: Nicolas Wadimoff
Production: Akka Films
Switzerland, France - “Do You Love Me”
Director: Lana Daher
Production: Films de Force Majeure
France
Out of Competition
- “Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don't” (Closing Film)
Director: Gianni Di Gregorio
Production: Bibi Film, Rai Cinema, Les Films du Poisson
Italy, France
Venetian Nights (Notti Veneziane)
- “6:06”
Director: Tekla Taidelli
Production: Argo Film – Tranky Film
Italy - “Amata”
Director: Elisa Amoruso
Italy - “Confiteor”
Director: Bonifacio Angius
Italy, Poland - “Una Cosa Vicina”
Director: Loris Nese
Production: Lapazio Film
Italy - “Dom” (Opening Film Notti Veneziane)
Director: Massimiliano Battistella
Production: Kama Productions / Mess Sarajevo
Italy, Bosnia-Herzegovina - “Film Di Stato”
Director: Roland Sejko
Italy - “Indietro Così”
Director: Antonio Morabito
Italy - “Life Beyond The Pine Curtain”
Director: Giovanni Troilo
Italy - “Toni, Mio Padre”
Director: Anna Negri
Production: MIR Cinematografic