Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Venezia 70 – Future Reloaded

Having just returned from Venice myself (the city, not the festival), I discovered a collection of 70 very short films (approximately 90 seconds each) by directors who have had films shown at the Venice Film Festival during its 70-year history. From this group of films collectively called Venezia 70 - Future Reloaded I have chosen 8 by some of my favorite directors, 5 of whom will have new films at the upcoming New York Film Festival.

Jia Zhang-ke
Wang Bing
Lav Diaz
Apichatpong Weerasethakul
João Pedro Rodrigues
Hong Sang-Soo
Nicolás Pereda
Catherine Breillat
 
They range from various forms of documentary to avant-garde to humorous narrative, but I am very interested in how great directors can compress their essential cinematic style into such a short format.