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THURSDAY AND FRIDAY, OCTOBER 16 AND 17, 2025
6 PM
BLACK BOX, PALAZZO DIEDO

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The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema, October 16
The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology, October 17
Respective duration: 2h 30 minutes and 2h 24 minutes

The film will be screened in English with English subtitles

On October 16, the screening will be followed by a talk between director Sophie Fiennes and film critic John Bleasdale
On October 17 the event will feature a conversation between the director and professor Shaul Bassi

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Palazzo Diedo presents two internationally acclaimed works by English director Sophie Fiennes, resulting from her collaboration with Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst Slavoj Žižek, one of the most incisive contemporary thinkers, known for his critical reflections on the conflicts and contradictions of contemporary culture in relation to dominant cultural models. 

The Pervert's Guide to Cinema (2006) is a humorous exploration of some cult films from world cinema through a psychoanalytic lens, while the sequel The Pervert's Guide to Ideology (2012) uses the same approach to analyze "the mechanisms that shape what we believe and how we behave."

Sophie Fiennes is a filmmaker based in London.  She is widely acclaimed for her unique observational eye, as well as her strong sense of cinematic form.  Exploring a broad range of ideas and diverse modes of creativity, Fiennes' films play with notions of performance and identity. Her films have screened theatrically and in festivals including Sundance, Edinburgh, Sydney, London, Rotterdam and Toronto.

John Bleasdale is a writer based in Italy. His work regularly appears in Variety, The Guardian, The Times and Sight & Sound. He is the author of the or of several books including The Magic Hours: the films and Hidden Life of Terrence Malick and Darkness Visible: the Cinema of Jonathan Glazer. He also teaches at Ca Foscari University. 

Shaul Bassi is Full Professor of English literature and Environmental Humanities and has been teaching at Ca’ Foscari University since 2000. His research, teaching and publications have different foci, ranging between Shakespeare, environmental humanities, postcolonial theory and literature (India and Africa), and Jewish studies.