This week, several A-list Hollywood actors and actresses are making their way to Venice, including Brad Pitt, Nicole Kidman, Joaquin Phoenix, Angelina Jolie, George Clooney, and Lady Gaga.
The Italian city of Venice and Hollywood heavy hitters including Brad Pitt, Lady Gaga, George Clooney, and Angelina Jolie will be in attendance at this year’s Venice Film Festival.
The A-listers’ performance on those beautiful docks, after last year’s scaled-down version due to strikes, is a pleasant return to normal, but the spotlight will be on their flicks. Along with Cannes, the highly esteemed Venice Film Festival (August 28–September 7) provides a grand opening to the awards season. Until March, the Oscar conversation will revolve around Lido blockbusters.
This year’s schedule includes both beloved Hollywood features and intriguing foreign auteur features, ranging from “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” to “Horizon: An American Saga—Chapter 2” and “Wolfs”. Festivals are full of surprises, so it’s best to keep an open mind and note all you can. While you wait, here are ten upcoming Venice films to enjoy.
Regardless of your feelings regarding the controversy surrounding the film that surfaced five years ago, it is pleasing to hear that the makers of the “Joker” sequel plan to compete in Venice. To be honest, “Joker: Folie à Deux” doesn’t require festival attention. The first movie, which received eleven nominations, brought in around $1 billion. According to Venice chairman Alberto Barbera, who told Deadline that the film is “one of the most daring, brave, and creative films in recent American cinema,” the dystopian musical “confirms Todd Phillips as one of the most creative directors working at the moment.” October 4th is the intended date of the theatrical release.
Not to be overlooked are Chilean director Pablo Larraín’s works, such as “Spencer” and “Jackie,” which centre on well-known women who experience tragic circumstances. In “Maria,” directed by Steven Knight (“Peaky Blinders”) and starring Angelina Jolie, he brings opera singer Maria Callas back to life. Tabloids ridiculed the singer’s relationship with Aristotle Onassis, who left for the tragic Jacqueline Kennedy after they had an affair. At 53 years old, Callas, the author of multiple platinum-selling recordings of classical music, departed from this life in 1977. With distribution in mind, “Maria” contends.
Based on William S. Burroughs’ writing, “Queer” takes place in Venice and stars Daniel Craig and Luca Guadagnino. Craig’s performance, in Barbera’s words, was “career-defining.” The main character, a US expat, is in Mexico City on a drug search. He encounters this young man and develops an unhealthy fixation on him. He started writing the book in the early 1950s as a companion to “Junkie,” but it didn’t see publication until 1985. Oren Moverman and Steve Buscemi have both tried to adapt. The general audience wants to see “Queer”.
Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore star in Pedro Almodóvar’s first English-language film. The story benefits from the limited facts since readers don’t need a lot of explanation to become engrossed. He continues, saying that a “deep misinterpretation” separates a mother with flaws from her irate daughter. Almodóvar continued, “It also talks about conflict, death, friendship, and sexual pleasure.” The New York Film Festival will also screen the movie before its December release.
Director Halina Reijn of the Netherlands, who brought us the fantastic “Bodies, Bodies, Bodies,” has us giddy with anticipation for “Babygirl.” Celebrity CEO Harris Dickinson has an affair with a younger intern, and Nicole Kidman, who was in “Eyes Wide Shut” 25 years ago, is back for another role. Antonio Banderas is also fantastic in it. Theatres will be able to see it in December thanks to A24.
In Brady Corbet’s three-and-a-half-hour drama, Adrián Brody and Felicity Jones play the roles of architect László Toth and his wife Erzsébet, who try to establish themselves in the US after escaping Europe during WWII. Meeting Guy Pearce’s character, businessman Harrison Lee Van Buren, who employs Toth to build a modernist monument, causes both their lives and the lives of others around them to take unexpected turns. Even though they never get old, not everyone likes the films directed by Corbet (“Vox Lux”). Focus Features and Universal are handling distribution, but the film still doesn’t have a release date.
“Separated,” directed by Errol Morris and examining Trump’s immigration policy, “2073,” a futuristic film by Asif Kapadia, “Pavements,” a hybrid documentary about the Stephen Malkmus band by Alex Ross Perry, and “Riefenstahl,” a film by Andres Veiel, are some of the inventive nonfiction films. Among Wang Bing’s five years of productions, only “Youth (Homecoming),” a vérité documentary on migrant labourers in Zhili, China’s textile mills, made it to the main competition. It is intended to be shared.
Nina, an OB-GYN in rural Georgia who does abortions unlawfully, is the protagonist of the second feature film directed by Dea Kulumbegashvili of Georgia. Investigations into the baby’s death while in her care have given rise to allegations of unethical and professional behaviour. Just like the abortion drama “Happening” in Venice three years ago, we anticipate this to be another smash blockbuster. The 2020 Kulumbegashvili festival was the platform for the world premiere of “Beginning,” a work inspired by the explosives at a Jehovah’s Witness congregation. A US distributor is currently being sought after by “April,” a film that is set to play at TIFF and the New York Film Festival.
An FBI agent had suspicions that a white supremacist group was responsible for atrocities committed in the Pacific Northwest. This crime thriller from the 1980s was produced and starred by Jude Law. Nicholas Hoult will star as the magnetic leader in the December release of Justin Kurzel’s suspense thriller.
Director Athina Rachel Tsangari, who has won praise for her work on “Attenberg” and “Chevalier,” returns to the main competition with “Harvest,” an adaptation of a novel by Jim Crace that follows the lives of three immigrants in a mediaeval English village who are accused of causing economic troubles. This was probably the inspiration for Caleb Landry Jones’s Scottish accent in the “Dogman” commercial from last year. While the US market is in the dark about distribution plans and timeframes, Mubi is available in a plethora of European countries.
The seven-part psychological thriller directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu and starring Cate Blanchett and Kevin Kline launches on AppleTV+ on October 11. Blanchett portrays a journalist whose horrific secret is the subject of a novel in the film.
