Venice Days, an independent sidebar of the Venice Film Festival, has “suspended” screenings of Georgian filmmaker Rusudan Glurjidze‘s second feature film “Antikvariati” (The Antique).
The sidebar’s organizers have canceled the press and industry screening scheduled for Aug. 28, and the public screenings have been removed from the schedule.
The move follows an emergency decree by the Court of Venice obtained by three production companies – Viva Film in Russia, Avantura Film in Croatia, and Pygmalion in Cyprus – over a copyright dispute regarding the film’s script, according to a statement issued by Venice Days.
In its statement, Venice Days – also known as Giornate degli Autori – said: “We believe, in the very spirit of Giornate degli Autori, that our chief duty, shared with the Italian filmmakers’ associations that promote our showcase, is the defense of copyright, hence the defense of the filmmaker Rusudan Glurjidze, present in Venice. We also feel that the decision of the judge at the Court of Venice must be taken into serious consideration, pending further developments.
“That said, we will do whatever is in our power, in observance of the law as well as the freedom of expression of the filmmaker, to support the existence of the work itself and its visibility in Venice over the coming days.”
It remains unclear what that “visibility” might mean in any practical sense.
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