Films from parts of the world plagued by war and other hardships dominate the Venice Film Festival’s independently run Giornate Degli Autori that will open with Ukrainian-born director Vladlena Sandu’s autobiographical documentary “Memory” that revisits her traumatic childhood memories in war-torn Chechnya. The competition of the Giornate – which is also known as Venice Days – comprises 10 world premieres, none of which are english-language titles. They hail from countries including Iran, Lebanon Kenya, Lithuania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mexico, Spain, Greece and Italy. The selection features another filmmaker, Germany-based Russian filmmaker Nastia Korkia, re-elaborating the Chechnyan conflict in “A Short Summer,” the story of eight-year-old Katya, who goes on vacation with her grandparents just as the war in Chechnya breaks out. “In many of the selected titles the goal is life, building lives, relationships. One tries to process grief in order to overcome it and try hard to see the world as a hospitable place [in order to] fill in the distance born of exile,” said the section’s artistic director Gaia Furrer in a statement. Also competing at Venice Days is Spanish director Gabriel Azorín first feature “Last Night I Conquered the City of Thebes” which straddles Roman and modern times as “two 21st-century kids and two Roman soldiers from the 1st century A.D. share the same spot: thermal springs, by night,” as the synopsis puts it. Zurich-born Kenyan filmmaker Damien Hauser (“After the Long Rains”) is in competition with “Memory of Princess Mumbi” a dystopian fable set in 2093, in an imaginary Africa. The lead character is a young filmmaker who sets off to make a documentary about a global conflict that had exploded twenty years earlier. There are two works competing from Iran: “Past Future Continuous,” a new documentary co-directed by Firouzeh Khosrovani (“Radiograph of a Family”) and Morteza Ahmadvand about a woman who has fled Iran after the Islamic Revolution and can only observe her relatives on the security cameras installed in their home in Tehran; as well as Amir Azizi’s “Inside Amir,” a love letter to the city of Tehran “and a personal exploration of the doubts that surface before the act of leaving one’s own country,” the synopsis says. Other standout titles include Italian director Nicolangelo Gelormini’s “La Gioia” (pictured above) starring Valeria Golino and Jasmine Trinca. This second feature by Gelormini, who served as an assistant to Paolo Sorrentino and served as a director on TV series “The Art of Joy” which played at Cannes last year, is the true tale of a turbulent teacher-student love affair pairing Golino and Saul Nanni (“The Leopard”). The film’s title translates as “Joy”. Norwegian director Dag Johan Haugerud, winner of this year’s Berlin Golden Bear with “Dreams (Sex Love),” will preside over the jury. Other notable titles outside of the competition include French documentary director Claire Simon’s “In Writing Life,” a portrait of Nobel Prize-winning novelist Annie Ernaux through readings of her books by French high school students. Shorts by Joanna Hogg and Alice Diop will unspool as part of the Prada-commissioned Miu Miu Women’s Tales, a series of short films directed by women. The 22nd edition of Venice Days will run Aug. 27-Sept. 6, in tandem with the official Venice Film Festival selection. See the full lineup below. IN COMPETITION “Last Night I Conquered the City of Thebes,” Gabriel Azorín “Arkoudotrypa” (“Bearcave”), Stergios Dinopoulos, Krysianna B. Papadakis “Daroon-E Amir” (“Inside Amir”), Amir Azizi “La Gioia,” Nicolangelo Gelormini “Memory,” Vladlena Sandu – Opening Film “Memory of Princess Mumbi,” Damien Hauser “Past Future Continuous,” Morteza Ahmadvand, Firouzeh Khosrovani “A Sad and Beautiful World,” Cyril Aris “Short Summer,” Nastia Korkia “Vanilla,” Mayra Hermosillo OUT OF COMPETITION “Come ti muovi, sbagli” (“Damned if You do, Damned if You Don’t”), Gianni Di Gregorio SPECIAL EVENTS “Do You Love Me,” Lana Daher “Writing Life – Annie Ernaux Through the Eyes of High School Students,” Claire Simon “I Want Her Dead,” Gianluca Matarrese “Laguna,” Sharunas Bartas “Who is Still Alive,” Nicolas Wadimoff WOMEN’S TALES PROJECT (shorts), in collaboration with Prada’s Miu Miu Label “Autobiografia di una borsetta” (“Autobiography of a Handbag”), Joanna Hogg “Fragments for Venus,” Alice Diop