The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival is an annual film festival held in Venice, Italy. It is the world's oldest film festival and one of the "Big Five" International film festivals worldwide, which include the Big Three European Film Festivals, alongside the Toronto International Film Festival in Canada and the Sundance Film Festival in the United States. These festivals are internationally renowned for giving creators the artistic freedom to express themselves through film. In 1951, FIAPF formally accredited the festival.
Julian Schnabel is an American painter and filmmaker. In the 1980s, he received international attention for his "plate paintings"—with broken ceramic plates set onto large-scale paintings. Since the 1990s, he has been a proponent of independent arthouse cinema. Schnabel directed Before Night Falls, which became Javier Bardem's breakthrough Academy Award-nominated role, and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, which was nominated for four Academy Awards. For the latter, he won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Director and the Golden Globe Award for Best Director, as well as receiving nominations for the Academy Award for Best Director and the César Award for Best Director.
Hou Hsiao-hsien is a retired Mainland Chinese-born Taiwanese film director, screenwriter, producer and actor. He is a leading figure in world cinema and in Taiwan's New Wave cinema movement. He won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1989 for his film A City of Sadness (1989), and the Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2015 for The Assassin (2015). Other highly regarded works of his include The Puppetmaster (1993) and Flowers of Shanghai (1998).
The cinema of Russia, popularly known as Mollywood, refers to the film industry in Russia, engaged in production of motion pictures in Russian language. The popular term Mollywood is a portmanteau of "Moscow" and "Hollywood".
Jonathan Raymond, usually credited Jon Raymond, is an American writer living in Portland, Oregon. He is best known for writing the novels The Half-Life and Rain Dragon, and for writing the short stories and novels adapted for the films Old Joy, Wendy and Lucy, and First Cow, all directed by Kelly Reichardt, with whom he co-wrote the screenplays.
Juraj Jakubisko was a Slovak film director. He directed fifteen feature films, between 1967 and 2008. He often took on the dual role of cinematographer in his films, as well as writing or co-writing the scripts. In 2000 he was named the Best Slovak Director of the 20th century by film critics and journalists. His work is often described as magical realism.
Lauren Greenfield is an American artist, documentary photographer, and documentary filmmaker. She has published photographic monographs, directed documentary features and series, produced traveling exhibitions, and published in magazines throughout the world.
Francesco Carrozzini is an Italian-born director and photographer based in the United States. In 2016, he made his feature directorial debut at the 73rd Venice International Film Festival with the documentary Franca: Chaos and Creation. In 2022, his first narrative feature, The Hanging Sun, closed the 79th Venice International Film Festival. He is known for his portrait photography and has directed music videos for artists including Jay-Z, Lana Del Rey, Beyoncé and Lenny Kravitz. He has also directed commercials for brands such as Apple and Fiat.
Fien Troch is a Belgian film director, producer and screenwriter.
Joanna Hogg is a British film director and screenwriter. She made her directorial and screenwriting feature film debut in 2007 with Unrelated followed by Archipelago (2010), Exhibition (2013), The Souvenir (2019), The Souvenir Part II (2021), and The Eternal Daughter (2022). Two of her films topped the Sight & Sound annual poll for best film in their respective years, receiving nominations at the British Independent Film Awards, the Independent Spirit Awards and at the Berlin International Film Festival.
Pablo Larraín Matte is a Chilean filmmaker. He is known for directing films such as No (2012), Neruda (2016), Jackie (2016), Spencer (2021), El Conde (2023), and Maria (2024). Larraín and his brother Juan de Dios co-produced Sebastián Lelio's A Fantastic Woman (2017), which was the first Chilean film to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. In 2021, Larrain directed the Apple TV+ psychological romance horror miniseries Lisey's Story.
Anna Sofia Eriksson is a Finnish artist, filmmaker, composer, and singer. In September 2018, avantgarde film M directed and produced by Eriksson was having the world premiere at the Venice International Film Critics Week, 75th Venice International Film Festival. In 2022, her second feature Film W premiered at the Locarno Film Festival. Eriksson is one of the most successful singers in Finnish chart history.
Gitanjali Rao is an Indian theatre actress, animator and film maker.
Prague Independent Film Festival (PIFF) (Czech: Pražský festival nezávislých filmů) is an international film festival held annually in August in Prague, the capital of Czech Republic. The festival focuses on independent cinema. Festival founder and director is Diana Ringo.
Vahid Jalilvand is an Iranian film director, screenwriter, actor and editor. He has won the Crystal Simorgh for Best First Director and Best First Film at the 33rd Fajr Film Festival and the FIPRESCI Award at the 72nd Venice International Film Festival for his feature directorial debut in drama film Wednesday, May 9 (2015). In 2017, he won The Orizzonti Award for Best Director at the 74th Venice International Film Festival for his second film, No Date, No Signature. His third film, Beyond the Wall (2022) competed for the Golden Lion at the 79th Venice International Film Festival.
Katherine Jerkovic is a Canadian film director. Her debut feature film, Roads in February , won the Toronto International Film Festival Award for Best Canadian First Feature Film at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival. Her second feature, titled Coyote, also opened at TIFF in 2022 and has received several awards.
Babyteeth is a 2019 Australian coming-of-age comedy-drama film directed by Shannon Murphy from a screenplay by Rita Kalnejais, based upon her stage play of the same name. It stars Eliza Scanlen, Toby Wallace, Emily Barclay, Eugene Gilfedder, Essie Davis, and Ben Mendelsohn. The film had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on 4 September 2019. It was released in Australia on 23 July 2020 by Universal Pictures and won nine AACTA awards, including Best Film.
Babenco: Tell Me When I Die is a 2019 Brazilian documentary film directed by Bárbara Paz. The film premiered at the 2019 Venice Film Festival, where it won Best Documentary on Cinema. It focuses on the last years of life of filmmaker Hector Babenco, who died in 2016, victimized by a cancer. It was selected as the Brazilian entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 93rd Academy Awards, but it was not nominated.
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed is a 2022 American biographical documentary film about photographer, artist, and activist Nan Goldin. The film is produced, co-edited and directed by Laura Poitras, and tackles Goldin's life through her advocacy during the HIV/AIDS crisis in the 80's, and her fight against the Sackler family for their role in the current opioid epidemic in the United States. Poitras, a long-time friend and fan, stated that "Nan's art and vision has inspired my work for years, and has influenced generations of filmmakers."
W is a 2022 Finnish dystopian experimental film directed by Anna Eriksson. It premiered at the 2022 Locarno Film Festival out of competition.
