Italian Director Tommaso Usberti’s Toxic Masculinity Drama ‘Before the War’ Scores Top Venice Critics’ Week Prize

Paris-based Italian director Tommaso Usberti’s romance “Before the War,” a reflection on racism and toxic masculinity set in the Northern Italian plains, is the big winner of the Venice Critics’ Week where it scooped the grand prize and the award for best producer. 

“Before the War” — which is the only Italian entry in the section dedicated to first works from around the world — is the tale of a young man named Guido, raised within a Northern Italian racist milieu, who becomes attracted to a Kosovar immigrant named Sonia.

“He has earned respect from his peers through violence in the racist and macho environment he grew up in,” says the synopsis. But when Guido meets Sonia, something shifts. He finds himself torn between the world that made him and the one that she is opening up for him.

The jury — made up of French director Chloé Barreau, Hungarian producer Júlia Berkes and Italian writer, cultural curator and film-industry professional Caterina Mazzucato — praised “Before the War” in a statement. “For its intense and vibrant direction, for the powerful and expressive talent of its lead actor, and for the mastery of its mise-en-scène, thanks to superbly crafted images in which bodies, faces and gestures create an impressive physical tension while provincial Italy becomes the stage for violent passions,” they said.

“Before the War” stars the director’s brother Piero Usberti as Guido and Luàna Bajrami as Sonia. The drama’s cast also comprises Massimiliano Balduzzi, Sebastien Halnaut and Cisky Capizzi. 

In its statement, he Critics’ Week jury went on to praise “Before the War” for being a film “that relies as much on silence as on words, where sound and music become a battlefield in their own right to explore urgently contemporary themes: toxic masculinity, impossible desire and the individual’s profound loneliness.” They called it “a raw, evocative and deeply cinematic feature, both classic and innovative, revealing a strong and distinctive directorial voice.”

“Before the War” is produced by Thibault de Gantes, Lucas Le Postec (L’Heure d’été), Francesco Virga, Adele Dell’Erario, Marco Serrecchia (MIR Cinematografica) and Beatrice Bordone Bulgari (Eolo Film Productions). It’s being sold internationally by The Party Film Sales.

London-based Chilean-Indian director Shalini Adnani’s debut feature “Our Share of Sand,” about a 12-year-old girl named Maya who returns to rural India to reconnect with her estranged father, won the section’s audience award.

Fiction-documentary hybrid “The End of Times,” a political piece co-directed by Bibiana Rojas Gómez and Juan David Cárdenas that uses artificial intelligence and explores colonialism and capitalism in Colombian history, scooped both the best technical contribution award and a special mention.

Chinese drama “Zoom In, Zoom Out,” by Dong Jie — about a young video game designer who embarks on a journey to seek his missing roommate Gao following a clue hidden in an online game — scored the prize for the most innovative film in the selection, awarded by a separate jury.

 Venice Critics’ Week general delegate Beatrice Fiorentino said in a statement that the section’s main winners “perfectly reflect the breadth of our program, from its most accessible works to its most radical, while above all recognizing the section’s profoundly contemporary character, firmly rooted in the complexities of the present.”