From Variety · Nick Vivarelli · · 1m 20s
A Kosovar romance cracks open a racist town
Tommaso Usberti's first feature swept Venice Critics' Week with a love story set against Northern Italian bigotry.
In brief
Tommaso Usberti's first feature swept Venice Critics' Week with a love story set against Northern Italian bigotry. Venice Critics' Week gave its grand prize to a debut about a young man raised on racism who falls for the woman his world taught him to hate. Originally reported by Variety.
Italy's only entry wins big
Tommaso Usberti's "Before the War" took the grand prize at Venice Critics' Week, the section reserved for first features from around the world.
Two prizes, not one
The film also picked up the award for best producer, making it the clear standout of the 2026 lineup.
“the big winner of the Venice Critics' Week where it scooped the grand prize and the award for best producer”
Set on the Northern plains
Usberti, an Italian director based in Paris, places the story in the flat farmland of Northern Italy, a landscape with its own closed social codes.
A boy raised on bigotry
The lead is a young man named Guido, formed by a racist milieu that told him exactly who belongs and who does not.
“a young man named Guido, raised within a Northern Italian racist milieu”
Then he meets Sonia
Guido becomes attracted to Sonia, a Kosovar immigrant. The romance runs straight at everything he was raised to believe.
Racism and masculinity together
Usberti treats the two as one problem rather than separate themes, using a love story to show how each one props up the other.
What matters most
Venice Critics' Week gave its grand prize to a debut about a young man raised on racism who falls for the woman his world taught him to hate.
