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References to Iran appear throughout this year’s Biennale. Filmmakers in exile Amir Naderi from New York and Marjane Satrapi from Paris present films in the competition and in sidebars. Italian journalist Monica Maggioni who was already on the Lido last year, with her documentary Ward 54 about returning war veterans, is back with another documentary, Out of Tehran, shown in Controcampo Italiano, the section showcasing new cinema trends.

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Renée (superbly played by comedienne, actress and director Josiane Balasko) is the fifty-something short, squat and always grumpy super of one of those buildings in Paris qualified as “standing,” meaning of understated luxury. Paloma (Garance Le Guillermic) is a precocious, nerdy and observant twelve-year-old who lives in that building. Determined to commit [existential] suicide on her thirteenth birthday,

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Split between two settings, two time periods, and two casts, it’s no wonder that John Madden’s The Debt divides so easily into two levels of quality. There’s one part that I like to call a classy, sexy Cold War spy thriller. There’s another part that I like to call “the ending.” Three Mossad agents share an apartment in East Berlin in 1966; two men and a young woman. The cramped quarters in a hostile land breeds danger and romantic tension.