It’s inarguable that the pioneering work of Marie and Pierre Curie changed the world, for both good and ill. “Radioactive,” the new film starring Rosamund Pike and Sam Riley as the late-nineteenth century Parisians, gives us a brief on the life, and, yes, the deaths, largely due to radiation poisoning, of the couple that is part love story, part scientific procedural and, somewhat strangely, decides to also jump through time (more on this later).

Remember Persepolis, the graphic novel which was adapted into a feature film, both created by French-Iranian author Marjane Satrapi and her partner-in-crime Vincent Paronnaud? Satrapi has made a new movie, set for release in August, called Chicken with Plums. 1958, Tehran: Since his beloved violin was broken, Nasser Ali Khan, one of the renowned musicians of his time, is giving up on living. Finding no comparable instrument

Marjane Satrapi’s “Poulet aux Prunes” (“Chicken with Plums”) is the French-Iranian filmmaker’s live-action adaptation of her namesake graphic novel. Co-directing once more with Vincent Paronnaud, who also worked on the 2007 film adaptation of “Persepolis,” Satrapi creates a fairly-tale 1950s Tehran as the backdrop for the story of Nasser Ali, a violinist (Satrapi’s uncle, or so she claims) who resolves to die

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.