Lav Diaz continues his prolific connection with the Venice Film Festival, where he won the Golden Lion in 2016 for The Woman Who Left, by returning to the current edition with his new feature film. Let Us Through, Dear Ancestors dives once more into Filipino history to excavate the painful heritage of Christian colonialism through missionary work. In the Palazzo del Cinema, which comes with its own problematic historical connections, the celebrated filmmaker opens up to Lidanoir about the past lingering in the present, facing a neglected chapter of history, and changes in his unique cinematic style.

The involuntary deception and white lies threatening to tear romantic and family bonds apart that play a key role in Michelle Zhou's intimate drama are all too familiar to her. In the most literal sense, since the Chinese director based the story of Big Little Things on her and her partner and producer Chun Yu's own experiences. On site at a rain-swept Venice where the queer romance premieres in the Orizzonti slate, Zhou and Yu talk with Lidanoir about bringing their personal struggle for love and acceptance to the screen, filmmaking as therapy, and the central role of queer cinema as an agent of social acceptance.

Only last year, her feature film debut won Anuparna Roy the Best Director award in the Venice Film Festival’s Orizzonti section. Now she returns to the same competitive slate with her ambitious sophomore work. Lovers in the Blue Night follows an ensemble cast of migrant workers as they strive for social acceptance, economic stability, and love in the working-class districts of Mumbai. Just ahead of the festival premiere, the Indian director sat down for an interview with Lidanoir about the importance of social realism as a central concept, displaying diversity through dialogue in different dialects, and openly showing female desire in a patriarchal society.

Her debut documentary Harlan County, USA marked Barbara Kopple as a fearless new perspective in non-fiction Film which she used timeless to stand against injustice and inequality. Fittingly, her second work American Dream made her the first female director to win an Oscar for Best Documentary. Union Town continues Kopple's involvement with workers' rights and the collective fight against repressive corporate tactics. Premiering out of competition at the Venice Film Festival, her gripping piece of cinéma vérité chronicles the struggle of gig workers and delivery agents against UPS and Amazon. In Venice posh hotel Excelsior, the filmmaker spoke with Lidnoir about her work in light of current US politics, the new wave of activities documentaries, and the importance of speaking out against repressive structures.

Dass er für seinen ersten Spielfilm nur ein A-List Festival in Frage kommt, stand früh für Manuel Wetscher fest - und gelang ihm auch mit einer Weltpremiere in Venedigs wichtigster Nebensektion Orizzonti. Dort erzählt Eklipse von einer Kinderfreundschaft Ende der 90er, als die Jahrtausendwende und eine totale Sonnenfinsternis biografische Wendepunkte markieren und. Familiengeheimnisse ans Licht bringen. Vor Ort im Palazzo del Cinema spricht der österreichische Regisseur mit Lidanoir über die autobiografische Inspiration der Geschichte, den Dreh nahe der Orte seiner Kindheit und das zentrale Motiv HIV in der damaligen und heutigen sozialen Wahrnehmung.

As a film critic and film programmer, Beatrice Fiorentino looks back on intense collaborations with a number of prestigious Italian publications. A year after winning the 2014 Akai Prize as best film critic at the 71st Venice Film Festival, she became part of the “Film della Critica” panel of the National Union of Italian Film Critics and, just the next year, of the selection committee for the Venice International Film Critics’ Week. For more than half a decade, she has shaped the independent section focused on debut features into a space of artistic discovery and topical timeliness in the position of its artistic director. At the Lido’s Casa della Critica, Fiorentino speaks with Lidanoir about this year’s contentious political climate, diversity within the Settimana della Critica and beyond, and why she believes in the persistence of film festivals.

Five years after premiering his spiritual drama Luzifer at Locarno’s Concorso Internazionale, Peter Brunner returns to the festival's Piazza Grande with an uncompromisingly realist exploration of homelessness in the US. Co-scriptwriter Caleb Landry Jones, who happened to share the prize for the best lead performance at Sitges 2021 with Lucifer’s Franz Rogowski, stars in Down thr Arm of God as an idealistic pastor facing resistance from his Texas small-town congregation as he tries to help the local unhoused people. Just a few hours before the premiere, the Austrian director, Jones, and the actors India Marie Cross, John P.W. Jones, Bart Guthrie, Kip Lee Billups, and Christopher Israel talk with Lidanoir about collaborating with actual homeless individuals, the challenges of portraying their experiences realistically, and the devastating consequences of a dysfunctional system.

Locarno is already familiar ground for Vincent Grashaw. His indigenous drama Keep Quiet debuted in 2025 Out of Competition at the Swiss Film Festival, after presenting in 2024 his fictional boxer biopic Bang Bang in the same section. Now he returns with Bruton, combining comedy, crime and drama in a story closely based on real events. After celebrating the international premiere at Piazza Grande, the US director found some time for an interview with Lidanoir about meeting the real Brian Bruton, navigating the film shoot in three active prisons, and finding humanity in outcast characters.

His roles in Sons of Anarchy and Luke Cage made Theo Rossi a standout presence on the TV screen. After bagging an Independent Spirit Award for his performance in Emily the Criminal, the American actor continues his rise by impersonating notorious prison breakout Brian Bruton in Vincent Grashaw’s tragicomic crime drama. After Bruton’s premiere the previous night at Locarno’s Piazza Grande, Theo Rossi talks in an interview with Lidanoir about shooting in three actual prisons, meeting the real-life character his role is based on, and the many issues with the US prison system.

With his broad spectrum of films, ranging from experimental to anthologie and genre, Denis Côté i a regular at the most renowened international film festivals. So it comes at no surprise that hi newest work - the first after a life-saving kidney transplant - runs in Locarno' prestigious Concorso Internazionale. On site at the Festival, the Canadian filmmaker spoke with Lidanoir about Nobody's Violence and its controversial themes of assistant dying and end-of-live, finding a new perspective after his transplant, and being even less occupied with cinematic convention.