Nonostante, by and with Valerio Mastandrea, will be the opening film of the Orizzonti competition section, and September, 5 by Tim Fehlbaum, will be the opening film of the Orizzonti Extra competition section for the 81st Venice International Film Festival taking place August 28 – September 7, 2024.
Regarding Nonostante, Valerio Mastandrea, at his second film as a director following Ride (2018), declared: “Opening the Festival means opening the film to the eyes and hearts of the public. I take it as an opportunity to release a story that has been mine alone for a long time and which, I hope, will become everyone’s.”
Nonostante, starring also Dolores Fonzi, Lino Musella, Giorgio Montanini, Justin Alexandre Korovkin, Barbara Ronchi, Luca Lionello, and with Laura Morante, will premiere on Wednesday August 28th in Sala Darsena, in the afternoon of the Festival’s opening day, as the opening film of the Orizzonti competition section.
In Nonostante, a man spends peacefully his days in hospital without too many worries. He has been hospitalized for a while but that condition seems like the best way to live his life, safe from everything and everyone, without responsibilities and problems of any kind. It feels really good in there and even if some of his ward companions feel trapped, for them he can also feel free like nowhere else. That precious routine runs smoothly until a new person is admitted to the same ward. She is a restless, angry companion, she accepts nothing of that condition, especially the unwritten rules. She is not willing to wait, she wants to leave that place better or even worse. She wants to live as she should or die, as happens to those who end up in there. He is overwhelmed by that fury, first trying to defend himself and then accepting something incomprehensible. That encounter will help him accept that if you choose to truly face your heart and your emotions, there is no possible repair.
September 5, directed by Tim Fehlbaum, starring Peter Sarsgaard, John Magaro, Ben Chaplin, Leonie Benesch, is the opening film of Orizzonti Extra competition section. Producers on the film include Philipp Trauer, Thomas Wöbke, Tim Fehlbaum, Sean Penn, John Ira Palmer, John Wildermuth.
September 5 unveils the decisive moment that forever changed media coverage and continues to impact live news today. Set during the 1972 Munich Summer Olympics, the film follows an American Sports broadcasting team that quickly adapted from sports reporting to live coverage of the Israeli athletes taken hostage. Through this lens, September 5 provides a powerful new perspective on the live broadcast seen globally by an estimated one billion people at the time.
At the heart of the story is Geoff, a young and ambitious producer striving to prove himself to his boss, the legendary TV executive Roone Arledge. Together with Marianne, a German interpreter, Geoff unexpectedly takes the helm of the live coverage. As narratives shift, time ticks away, and conflicting rumors spread, with the hostages’ lives hanging in the balance, Geoff grapples with tough decisions while confronting his own moral compass. How do you cover a situation like this if what the perpetrators want is the spotlight you give?