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Isabella Torre is at Venice with her first feature “Basileia.” The film follows an archaeologist who, while exploring a tomb containing an ancient treasure in Southern Italy’s rugged Aspromonte mountains, unleashes mythical nymphs.

The dark fairytale – which is closing the fest’s independently run Giornate Degli Autori, also known as Venice Days – was developed at the Sundance Lab. It is produced by Torre’s partner, director Jonas Carpignano (“A Chiara”) and sold by Luxbox. “Basileia” is an expansion of Torre’s short “Nymphs,” which premiered at Venice Horizons in 2018. The film’s cast comprises Angela Fontana (“Indivisibili”) and Danish-American actor Elliott Crosset Hove (“Godland”).

Below, Torre and Carpignano speak to Variety about venturing into the non-conventional genre space with a tale that mixes mythology and present-day reality.

How did the story of “Basilea” germinate?

Torre: It’s all because of Aspromonte, which is not just a location — it became...

Screen can unveil the first trailer for Isabella Torre’s debut feature Basileia, set to world premiere out of competition as Venice Days’ closing film on September 6.

The Italian fantasy drama follows an archaeologist and his assistants searching for an ancient treasure whose digging unleashes mythological creatures that shake up the lives of the inhabitants of a remote village forever.

Cast includes Godland star Elliott Crosset Hove, Angela Fontana, and Koudous Seihon.

Shot on location in Calabria, Basileia is an adaptation of Torre’s short Nymphs which premiered in Venice Horizons 2018.

The film is produced by Jonas and Paolo Carpignano...

Germany’s Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg Names New Boss

Influential German funding body Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg is getting a new Managing Director. Sarah Duve-Scmid will succeed Kirsten Niehuus in the middle of next year. Duve-Scmid was previously a deputy board member and head of funding at the Leiterin der Förderabteilung bei der Filmförderanstalt (Federal Funding Agency). She was also Managing Director of Vision Kino. Niehuus is retiring in 2025, and a supervisory board picked her successor, who will work alongside Helge Jürgens, who is to remain Managing Director of Games and New Media until mid-2028. “With the Supervisory Board’s decision, the Medienboard is moving towards a continued successful future,” said Florian Graf, Head of the Berlin Senate Chancellery and Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Medienboard. “Building on the great 20 years of work by Kirsten Niehuus, who made the Berlin-Brandenburg metropolitan region the center of German film, Sarah Duve-Schmid stands for...

The Quay Brothers’ Sanatorium Under The Sign Of The Hour Glass, and Marie Losier’s biopic of feminist singer Peaches are among the line-up for this year’s Giornate degli Autori.

The independent sidebar of the Venice Film Festival runs from August 28-September 7 and has 10 films in competition.

Sanatorium Under The Sign Of The Hour Glass is a blend of stop-motion animation and live action, inspired by the story collection of the same name by Polish writer Bruno Schulz where the search for his late father becomes a metaphysical journey.

It is the only the third feature from UK-based animators the Quay Brothers,...

The Quay Brothers’ Sanatorium Under The Sign Of The Hour Glass, and Marie Losier’s biopic of feminist singer Peaches are among the line-up for this year’s Giornate degli Autori.

The independent sidebar of the Venice Film Festival runs from August 28-September 7 and has 10 films in competition.

Sanatorium Under The Sign Of The Hour Glass is a blend of stop-motion animation and live action, inspired by the story collection of the same name by Polish writer Bruno Schulz where the search for his late father becomes a metaphysical journey.

It is the only the third feature from UK-based animators the Quay Brothers,...

The Giornate Degli Autori, simply known as Venice Days, has unveiled its 2024 lineup.

The independently run event, which takes place alongside the Venice Film Festival, will this year follow a theme of creatures “poised over an abyss, walking a tightrope.” “To reach the other side, or else to escape from something behind them, or just because, seen from above — lost in time, lost in space — things look very different,” event organizers said.

The only Italian title in competition is Ciro De Caro’s Taxi Monamour, about two women who lose their way yet stubbornly persist in living life as they wish. Dutch filmmaker Jan-Willem Van Ewijk’s third feature film, Alpha., follows a troubled father-son relationship set high in the Swiss Alps.

French filmmaker Marie Losier revisits the feminist singer and performer Peaches and a 14-year-long friendship in Peaches Goes Bananas, shot over the course of 17 years, while the directorial debut of Shahab Fotouhi,...

Films directed by women dominate the Venice Film Festival’s independently run Giornate Degli Autori, which has unveiled a lineup full of first works and special events including “Peaches Goes Bananas,” French filmmaker Marie Losier’s tribute to iconic Canadian electropop provocateur Peaches.

Shot over the course of 17 years, “Peaches Goes Bananas” provides an intimate portrait of the former schoolteacher, who during the 1980s moved from Canada to Berlin and became a queer feminist icon, breaking taboos and “transforming her body into art,” as the doc’s synopsis puts it.

The competition of the Giornate – which is also known as Venice Days – comprises 10 world premieres, six of which are first works, within a selection that artistic director Gaia Furrer described in her notes as “rigorous” and “stylistically eclectic.”

Furer underlined that 16 out of the section’s 25 titles are directed by women, a fact she called significant “because many of them...

Paris-based sales outfit Luxbox has boarded international sales for Isabella Torre’s debut feature Basileia, produced by Jonas Carpignano.

The Italian fantasy drama is set in southern Italy and follows an archaeologist team whose latest dig accidentally unleashes mythical creatures. It is an adaptation of Torre’s debut feature Nymphs which premiered in Venice Horizons 2018.

Godland star Elliott Crosset Hove leads the cast with Angela Fontana, Koudous Seihon, Marco Raco, Ilaria Caffio and Ylenia Romano.

Carpignano produces Basileia through his outfit Stayback Productions while co-producers are Film I Väst, Snowglobe and Rai Cinema.

Torre’s second short Full Moon...