Venice Parallel Section Giornate Degli Autori Unveils 2026 Lineup
The Venice parallel section Giornate degli Autori (GdA) has unveiled its 2026 lineup, and it’s a celebration of female-led filmmaking. This year’s edition is dedicated to the memory of the festival’s late founder, Giorgio Gosetti, who passed away in March.
The lineup features 25 world premieres, including 13 Italian films and 14 directed by women. Among the highlights is Hungarian director Lili Horvát’s first English-language film, My Notes on Mars, which opens the edition. The sci-fi romance stars Mackenzie Davis as a scientist who vanishes during a hiking trip and reappears on the day of her own memorial service with no memory of the life she has lived in between.
Horvát previously made waves with Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time, a film about a talented surgeon who ditches her career for a man who then claims to have never met her before. That film debuted in the GdA’s 2020 edition and went on to win numerous awards, including a Golden Hugo in Chicago’s New Directors Competition.
The competition highlights include Polish-born Australian filmmaker Kuba Dorabialski’s Agata the Writer, starring Mia Wasikowska as an Australian writer who travels to Sarajevo to work on a novel about the Bosnian war and is forced to acknowledge the limits of her own artistic vision. Other contenders include Post Tenebras Lux actress Nathalia Acevedo’s directorial debut, Salón de Belleza, adapted from the radical novel by Mario Bellatin, and Robert Guédiguian’s A Woman Today, a film about a young woman grappling with the distance between her own idea of freedom and the contradictions of a present day still ridden with violence and inequality.
The lineup also features a showcase of nine titles in Venetian Nights, including Francesca Archibugi’s Carla Lonzi, A Feminist Story, exploring the life and times of one of the most radical feminist voices of 20th-century Italy. The festival will also host the Miu Miu Women’s Tales program, featuring on-stage conversations between Claire Denis and Mona Fastvold.
The GdA’s 23rd edition is a testament to the enduring legacy of Giorgio Gosetti, who dedicated his life to promoting new directions in cinema and building a community of filmmakers and audiences. As Artistic Director Gaia Furrer notes, ‘This edition carries with it a deep void and a deep gratitude. We owe to Giorgio the very idea for this free arena we inhabit, along with his faith in the new directions of cinema and his stubborn, loving determination to build and consolidate, year after year, a community of men and women filmmakers and audiences.’
The festival will run alongside the Venice Film Festival from September 2 to 12, with its activities based mainly in the Casa degli Autori and the Sala Laguna on the Venice Lido.
Official Selection
The following films are part of the official selection:
- Sadness Sometimes, Other Times Revolt by María Aparicio (Argentina, Spain, 2026)
- Agata the Writer by Kuba Dorabialski (Australia, 2026)
- Balcanica by Nicola Sorcinelli (Italy, Serbia, Croatia, 2026)
- Camouflage by Mykyta Gibalenko (Germany, 2026)
- Dear Ajayi by Damilola Orimogunje (Nigeria, Germany, 2026)
- I Plant My Hand in the Garden by Boris Hadžija & Hoda Taheri (Germany, Serbia, U.S.)
- The Indies by Pauline Julier, Nicolas Chapoulier (Switzerland, Spain, 2026)
- My Notes on Mars by Lili Horvát (Hungary, Austria)
- Salón de Belleza by Nathalia Acevedo (Mexico, France, 2026)
- A Woman Today by Robert Guédiguian (France, Italy, 2026)
The festival will also host a number of special events, including the documentary Carla Lonzi, A Feminist Story by Francesca Archibugi and the on-stage conversations between Claire Denis and Mona Fastvold as part of the Miu Miu Women’s Tales program.
