‘First Man’ soars as the Venice International Film Festival opens

The 75th Venice International Film Festival kicked off with the world premiere of First Man from Academy Award winner Damien Chazelle. The film is his follow-up to his Best Director-winning La La Land.

Reviews came in and were largely positive, if a bit more on the sheer spectacle and audacity of the film’s look and structure than the performances. 

Timed for the film’s premiere, here is a brand new trailer for First Man.

Academy Award-winning actress Vanessa Redgrave received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement. The prize coincides with a screening of her newest film, The Aspen Papers, directed by Julien Landais. Landais directed  the film from a script he wrote with Jean Pavans and Hannah Bhuiya, which is based on Pavans’ adaptation of the novella by Henry James. Poppy Delevingne, Jon Kortajarena and Lois Robbins co-star alongside Morgane Polanski, Barbara Meier, Alice Aufray, and Nicolas Hau.

Cohen Media will release the film in the U.S.

This is the second Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement of the 75th Venice Film Festival. As already announced, the Golden Lion to a director has been awarded to David Cronenberg. Each year La Biennale assigns two Golden Lions for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Film Festival: the first is awarded to a director, the second to an actor or actress.

“I am astonished and especially delighted to be awarded by the Venice Film Festival for a life’s work in film,” said Redgrave. “Last summer I was filming in Venice in The Aspern Papers. Many many years ago I filmed La vacanza in the marshes of the Veneto. My character spoke every word in the Venetian dialect. I bet I am the only non-Italian actress to act an entire role in Venetian dialect! Thank you a million times, dear Festival!.”