‘Joker,’ ‘Marriage Story,’ Kristen Stewart, Timothée Chalamet highlight Venice Film Festival lineup
The full lineup of competition and out of competition films for the 76th Venice International Film Festival has been announced and will feature the world premieres of Todd Phillips’ Joker, starring Joaquin Phoenix, Brad Pitt in James Gray’s Ad Astra, the Timothée Chalamet in David Michôd’s The King and Kristen Stewart as actress Jean Seberg in Seberg for Benedict Andrews. The latter two will appear out of competition.
Joining Joker and Ad Astra in competition will be Noah Baumbach’s Netflix film Marriage Story, the writer/director’s deeply personal and semi-autobiographical family drama about the divorce and child custody battle between two a theater director (played by Adam Driver) and film actress (Scarlett Johansson). It also stars Laura Dern, Alan Alda, Ray Liotta and Merritt Wever and is the only film expected to hit the trifecta of fall festivals: Venice, Telluride and Toronto, the last of which was announced earlier this week.
Netflix, which has a stacked lineup at Toronto as well, will also see Steven Soderbergh’s The Laundromat in competition. The Panama Papers drama features a stellar, Oscar-winning cast including Meryl Streep and Gary Oldman as well as Antonion Banderas, Jeffrey Wright, David Schwimmer, Larry Wilmore, Matthias Schoenaerts, James Cromwell and Sharon Stone. Curiously missing from the Netflix lineup at Venice is Fernando Meirelles’s The Two Popes, which details the lives of Popes Benedict (Anthony Hopkins) and Pope Francis (Jonathan Pryce). That film will skip its storytelling home country of Italy and hit Toronto and Telluride instead.
This year’s festival won’t be without controversy as the new film by Roman Polanski, An Officer and a Spy, will be shown in competition and receive the full red carpet premiere treatment. Exiled from the United States for over 40 years, Polanski has often found a warm welcome at European festivals and continues to do so in the era of #MeToo. His membership in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was revoked three years ago and the director recently filed a court case to reinstall that membership.
Other films competing for the Golden Lion include Pablo Larrain’s Ema, Golden Lion-winner Roy Andersson’s About Endlessness, Mario Martone’s The Mayor of the Rione Sanità, Yonfan’s No. 7 Cherry Lane, and Olivier Assayas’ Wasp Network. The festival, like Cannes, also has multiple sections outside of its main slate of competition and out of competition films including Venice Classics, where Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut and Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Grim Reaper will screen as well as continuing its television screenings. Paolo Sorrentino will premiere two episodes from The New Pope, starring Jude Law and John Malkovich. Sorrentino debuted the series precursor, The Young Pope, in Venice in 2016.
Previously announced, VIFF will open with the world premiere of Hirokazu Kore-eda’s new film The Truth. The family drama stars Juliette Binoche, Catherine Deneuve, and Ethan Hawke. The Truth is Kore-eda’s first English-language film and first directorial effort since winning the Palme d’Or in 2018.
Also previously announced, Argentinian director Lucrecia Martel (Zama) will serve as the president of this year’s competition jury and is only the seventh woman to serve in that position in the Venice’s 76-year history. Of the 21 films in competition only two are directed by women. That’s up one from last year’s single female-helmed entry, The Nightingale from Jennifer Kent.
Julie Andrews and and Pedro Almodóvar with be honored with the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in acting and directing, respectively.
The 76th Venice Film Festival runs August 28-September 7. Here is the full lineup.
Opening Film
“The Truth,” Hirokazu Kore-eda (in competition)
Closing Film
“The Burnt Orange Heresy,” Giuseppe Capotondi (out of competition)
Competition
“The Perfect Candidate,” Haifaa Al-Mansour
“About Endlessness,” Roy Andersson
“Wasp Network,” Olivier Assayas
“Marriage Story,” Noah Baumbach
“Guest of Honor, Atom Egoyan
“Ad Astra,” James Gray
“A Herdade,” Tiago Guedes
“Gloria Mundi,” Robert Guediguian
“Waiting for the Barbarians,” Ciro Guerra
“Ema,” Pablo Larrain
“Saturday Fiction,” Lou Ye
“Martin Eden,” Pietro Marcello
“The Mafia Is No Longer What It Used to Be,” Franco Maresco
“The Painted Bird,” Vaclav Marhoul
“The Mayor of the Rione Sanità,” Mario Martone
“Babyteeth,” Shannon Murphy
“Joker,” Todd Phillips
“An Officer and a Spy,” Roman Polanski
“The Laundromat,” Steven Soderbergh
“No. 7 Cherry Lane,” Yonfan
Special Event
“Goodbye, Dragon Inn,” Tsai Ming-Liang
Out of Competition – Fiction
“Seberg,” Benedict Andrews
“Vivere,” Francesca Archibugi
“Mosul,” Matthew Michael Carnahan
“Adults in the Room,” Costa-Gavras
“The King,” David Michod
“Tutto Il Mio Folle Amore,” Gabriele Salvatores
Out of Competition – Non Fiction
“Woman,” Yann Arthus-Bertrand, Anastasia Mikova
“Roger Waters Us + Them,” Sean Evans, Roger Waters
“I Diari Di Angela – Noi Due Cineasti. Capitolo Secondo,” Yervant Gianikian
“Citizen K,” Alex Gibney
“Citizen Rosi,” Didi Gnocchi, Carolina Rosi
“The Kingmaker,” Lauren Greenfield
“State Funeral,” Sergei Loznitsa
“Collective,” Alexander Nanau
“45 Seconds of Laughter,” Tim Robbins
Out of Competition – Special Screenings
“No One left Behind,” Guillermo Arriaga
“Il Pianeta in Mare,” Andrea Segre
“Electric Swan,” Konstantina Kotzamani
“Irreversible,” Gaspar Noe”
“Zerozerozero,” Stefano Sollima
“The New Pope,” Paolo Sorrentino
“Never Just a Dream: Stanley Kubrick and Eyes Wide Shut,” Matt Wells
“Eyes Wide Shut,” Stanley Kubrick
Venice Classics
“The Incredible Shrinking Man,” Jack Arnold (1957)
“The Grim Reaper,” Bernardo Bertolucci (1962)
“The Spider’s Stratagem,” Bernardo Bertolucci (1970)
“The Criminal Life of Archibaldo del la Cruz,” Luis Buñuel (1955(
“The Crossing of the Rhine,” “Andre Cayatte (1960)
“Maria Zef,” Vittorio Cottafavi (1981)
“Crash,” David Cronenberg (1996)
“Francesca,” Manoel de Oliveira (1981)
“The House is Black,” Forough Farrokhzad (1962)
“The White Sheik,” Federico Fellini (1952)
“Current,” Istvan Gaal (1963)
“The Hills of Marlik,” Ebrahim Golestan (1964)
“Death of a Bureaucrat,” Tomas Gutierrez Alea (1966)
“Out of the Blue,” Dennis Hopper (1980)
“Ecstacy,” Gustav Machaty (1932)
“Mauri,” Merata Mita (1988)
“Pigeon Shoot,” Giuliano Montaldo (1961)
“New York, New York,” Martin Scorsese (1977)
“The Red Snowball Tree,” Vasiliy Shukshin (1973)
“Way of a Gaucho,” Jacques Tourneur (1952)
Venice Days
“Seules Les Bêtes,” Dominik Moll
“La llorona,” Jayro Bustamante
“They Say Nothing Stays the Same,” Joe Odagiri
“Un Monde Plus Grand,” Fabienne Berthaud
“Corpus Christi,” Jan Komasa
“Beware Of Children,” Dag Johan Haugerud
“Un Divan à Tunis,” Manele Labidi
“The Long Walk,” Mattie Do
“Lingua Franca,” Isabel Sandoval
“5 è Il Numero Perfetto,” Igort
“Les Chevaux Voyageurs,” Bartabas
“Mio Fratello Rincorre I Dinosauri,” Stefano Cipani
Venice College Cinema
“The End of Love,” Keren Ben Rafael
“Lessons of Love,” Chiara Campara
“This is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection,” Jeremiah Lemonhang Mosese
Sconfini
“Unposted,” Elisa Amoruso
“The Scarecrows,” Nouri Bouzid
“Once More Unto the Breach,” Federico Ferrone, Michele Manzolini
“Effetto Domino, Alessandro Rossetto
Horizons
“Zumiriki,” Osker Alegria
“Blanco En Blanco,” Theo Court
“Mes Jours De Gloire,” Antoine De Bary
“Pelican Blood,” Katrin Gebbe
“Un Fils,” Mehdi M Barsaouli
“Nevia,” Nunzia De Stefano
“Moffie,” Oliver Hermanus
“Hava, Maryam, Ayesha,” Sahraa Karimi
“Rialto,” Peter Mackie Burns
“The Criminal Man,” Dmitry Mamuliya
“Revenir,” Jessica Palud
“Giants Being Lonely,” Grear Patterson
“Verdict,” Raymund Ribay Gutierrez
“Balloon,” Pema Tseden
“Just 6.5,” Saeed Roustaee
“Shadow of Water,” Sasidharan Sanal Kumar
“Sole,” Carlo Sironi
“Madre,” Rodrigo Sorogoyen
“Atlantis,” Valentyn Vasyanovych
He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.
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