Benedetta Argentieri

Radicalization is not exclusively the province of lonely, disaffected young men. Director Benedetta Argentieri’s challenging new documentary The Matchmaker, which just enjoyed its world premiere at the 2022 Venice Film Festival, provides compelling evidence of this, while also raising hard-to-answer questions about blurred lines, in the social media era, between mere personal self-destruction and a greater culpability when one promulgates and incites violence.

(First of a two-part series on the women filmmakers in the 79th Venice International Film Festival) Filmmaking is such a competitive field that we herald the women who share their cinematic vision without any excuses and qualms. These are women who we boldly call “film daredevils” as they juggle homemaking, motherhood, marriage, relationships, and social expectations and still march on and shine in the time-demanding task or labor of love called “filmmaking.