The Venice Film Festival will take place from August 27 to September 6. The head of the jury this year is American director, producer, and screenwriter Alexander Payne, winner of the Oscar for the scripts for the films “On the Sidelines” and “The Descendants”.
The program of the International Short Film Competition at the Venice Film Festival, “Horizons,” will feature the film “Unreachable” by Kyrylo Zemlyany. This is the only Ukrainian film at the Venice Film Festival this year.
“Unreachable” is an observant, subtle immersion in the inner world of a young man who fills his days with volunteering. But when the connection with his mother, who remained in the occupied territory, suddenly disappears, silence gradually changes everything. This is how the film is described in the production “Modern Ukrainian Cinema”.
The Venice Film Festival will also screen a film featuring one of the most famous Ukrainians in the world — boxer and absolute world champion Oleksandr Usyk. This is a sports drama, The Smashing Machine, directed by Benny Safdie, which tells the story of American MMA fighter Mark Kerr. The primary role will be played by Dwayne Johnson, and Oleksandr Usyk will play his rival, Ukrainian mixed martial arts fighter Igor Vovchanin. Mark Kerr and Vovchanin met in the ring twice — in 1999 and 2000, and both times Vovchanin was recognized as the winner.
The documentary film by Oleksandr Rodnyansky and Andriy Alferov, “Notes of a True Criminal,” will also be presented.
This documentary combines archival footage from World War II, filmed by Alexander Rodnyansky’s family, with materials from the end of the Cold War and modern footage of the war in Ukraine.
Rodnyansky shares his own experiences in the film, in particular, how he was declared a “foreign agent” in Russia and sentenced in absentia to 8.5 years in prison.
This is what the film’s title is all about — in an interview with Deadline, the director said: “It’s called that because I’m a criminal now.”
