Venice Critics Week Lineup Includes 100 Nights of Hero With Emma Corrin

British films dominate this year’s lineup of the Venice Film Festival’s Critics’ Week, which is dedicated to first and second works.

London-born filmmaker Oscar Hudson’s absurdist comedy “Straight Circle” — about a pair of enemy soldiers stationed on a remote border who descend into a state of profound disorientation after forgetting which side of the border is which — and fellow Londoner Imran Perretta’s “Ish” both made the cut for the seven-title competition. The competition is made up entirely of feature debuts.

The section’s out-of-competition closer is U.K. filmmaker Julia Jackman’s star-studded feminist fairy tale “100 Nights of Hero” (pictured above), starring Emma Corrin, Nicholas Galitzine, Maika Monroe, Amir El-Masry, Charli xcx, Richard E. Grant and Felicity Jones. Jackman won a new talent award at the BFI’s Future Film Festival in 2017 with her short “Emma, Change the Locks” with Olivia Williams. Her debut feature “Bonus Track,” starring Jack Davenport, Alison Sudol, Susan Wokoma and Josh O’Connor, was part of the Great8 showcase at Cannes and premiered at the London Film Festival and Tallinn in 2023. 

Besides “Straight Circle” and “Ish,” the seven-title competition comprises two Italian entries: “Agon,” a sports-themed allegorical drama starring Italian judo athlete and Olympic Gold medallist Alice Bellandi directed by Giulio Bertelli, who is fashion designer Miuccia Prada’s son; and “Waking Hours,” a documentary involving a clan of Afghan smugglers that is “waiting for people to lead [them] to the other side of the border, wandering through the labyrinth of an eternal and sleepless night,” the synopsis says.

Rounding off the competition are Greek director Evi Kalogiropoulou’s dystopian drama “Gorgonà,” set in an oil refinery in the industrialized Greek heartland, and Algerian director Yanis Koussim’s horror film “Roqia,” about a disciple of an old Raqi (a Muslim exorcist) who is worried that his master’s Alzheimer’s may unleash a long-contained evil. 

The out-of-competition opener is French director Caroline Deruas Peano’s “Stereo Girls,” about two inseparable 17-year-old best friends named Charlotte and Liza who “live for the thrill of music and the exciting promise of freedom,” according to its synopsis.

The Venice Critics’ Week titles were selected from nearly 700 feature film submissions from all over the world. “They cross borders of identity, geographical frontiers, existential boundaries: spaces where the image becomes an instrument of both analysis and interpretation,” said the section’s general delegate Beatrice Fiorentino in a statement. “The cinema of today shouts out loud, unsettles, repossesses. It is inhabited by rebels for a just cause who reclaim spaces of empowerment and rebirth.”

All Venice Critics’ Week entries will compete alongside titles in the official selection for the fest’s Lion of the Future prize, which is worth $100,000.

The Venice Film Festival’s official selection lineup will be announced on Tuesday. The 82nd edition of the Venice Film Festival runs Aug. 27-Sept. 6.

COMPETITION 

“Agon,” Giulio Bertelli (Italy, U.S., France)

“Cotton Queen,” Suzannah Mirghani (Germany, France, Palestine, Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia)

“Gorgonà,” Evi Kologiropoulu (Greece, France)

“Ish,” Imran Perretta (U.K.)

“Roqia,” Yanis Koussim (Algeria, France, Qatar, Saudi Arabia)

“Straight Circle,” Oscar Hudson (U.K.)

“Waking Hours,” Federico Cammarata, Filippo Foscarini (Italy)

OUT OF COMPETITION

Opening Film: “Stereo Girls,” Caroline Deruas Peano (France, Canada)

Closing Film: “100 Nights of Hero,” Julia Jackman (U.K.)