Venice Film Fest: Paramount Sets Triple Play with Downsizing, Suburbicon and mother!
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The lineup for the 74th Venice Film Festival is here and it looks like Paramount is playing some serious ball this year with three films hitting the Lido: George Clooney’s Suburbicon, Alexander Payne’s Downsizing (which will open the festival) and Darren Aronofsky’s mother! All three were also announced for Toronto earlier in the week. That also means Matt Damon will be doing double duty as he stars in both Downsizing and Suburbicon.
Fox Searchlight has a pair of awards hopefuls coming to Venice with The Shape of Water from Guillermo del Toro and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and A24 (reigning Best Picture winner with Moonlight) is debuting Lean on Pete from Andrew Haigh (Weekend, 45 Years). The studio will also bring theKate Mulleavy/Laura Mulleavy film Woodshock starring Kirsten Dunst. Focus Features, by way of Universal International, will debut the newest Stephen Frears/Judi Dench collaboration Victoria and Abdul out of competition for the Golden Lion. The pair most recently showed at Venice with Philomena in 2013. This is a far cry from the virtually studio-free lineup at the Cannes Film Festival this year as we enter the fall and dreams of critics kudos and Oscar nominations dominate the conversation.
But Venice is not limited to American awards contenders by any means. New films from Abdellatif Kechiche, Ai Weiwei, Takeshi Kitano and Koreada Kirkazu will also land on the Lido next month. New documentaries from filmmaking legends Frederick Wiseman and Errol Morris will also be shown as well as a pair of Michael Jackson non-fiction films and an extensive virtual reality slate.
Here is the full list of In Competition, Out of Competition and other sections for the 74th Venice Film Festival, which will run from August 30th-September 9th with a jury led by four-time Oscar nominee Annette Bening.
IN COMPETITION
“Human Flow,” Ai Weiwei (Germany, U.S.)
“mother!”, Darren Aronofsky (U.S.)
“Suburbicon,” George Clooney (U.S.)
“The Shape Of Water,” Guillermo Del Toro (U.S.)
“L’Insulte,” Ziad Doueiri (France, Lebanon)
“La Villa,” Robert Guediguian (France)
“Lean on Pete,” Andrew Haigh (U.K.)
“Mektoub, My Love: Canto Uno,” Abdellatif Kechiche (France)
“The Third Murder,” Koreada Hirkazu (Japan)
“Jusqu’a La Garde,” Xavier Legrand (France)
“Amore e Malavita,” Manetto Bros. (Italy)
“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” (U.K.)
“Hannah,” Andrea Pallaoro (Italy, Belgium, France)
“Downsizing,” Alexander Payne (U.S.)
“Angels Wear White,” Vivian Qu (China, France)
“Una Famiglia,” Sebastiano Risio (Italy)
“First Reformed,” Paul Schrader (U.S.)
“Sweet Country,” Warwick Thornton (Australia)
“The Leisure Seeker,” Paolo Virzì (Italy)
“Ex Libris – The New York Public Library, Frederick Wiseman (U.S.)
OUT OF COMPETITION
Special Events
“Casa D’Altri,” Gianni Amelio (Italy)
“Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ 3D,” John Landis (U.S)
“Making of Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller,’” Jerry Kramer (U.S.)
FICTION
“Our Souls at Night,” Ritesh Batra (U.S.)
“Il Signor Rotopeter,” Antonietta De Lillo (Italy)
“Victoria and Abdul,” Stephen Frears (U.K.)
“La Melodie,” Rachid Hami (France)
“Outrage Coda,” Takeshi Kitano (Japan)
“Loving Pablo,” Fernando Leon De Aranoa (Spain)
“Zama,” Lucrecia Martel (Argentina, Brazil)
“Wormwood,” Errol Morris (U.S.)
“Diva!”, Francesco Patierno (Italy)
“La Fidele,” Michael R. Roskam (Belgium, France, Netherlands)
“The Private Life of a Modern Woman,” James Toback (U.S.)
“Brawl in Cell Block 99,” S. Craig Zahler (U.S.)
NON-FICTION
“Cuba and the Cameraman,” Jon Albert (U.S.)
“My Generation,” David Batty (U.K)
“The Devil and Father Amorth,” William Friedkin (U.S.)
“This Is Congo,” Daniel McCabe (Congo)
“Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda,” Stephen Nomura Schible (U.S., Japan)
“Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond. The Story of Jim Carrey, Andy Kaufman, and Tony Clifton,” Chris Smith (U.S.)
“Happy Winter,” Giovanni Totaro (Italy)
HORIZONS
“Disappearance,” Ali Asgari (Iran, Qatar)
“Especes Menaces,” Gilles Bourdos (France, Belgium)
“The Rape of Recy Taylor,” Nancy Buirski (U.S.)
“Caniba,” Lucian Castaing-Taylor, Verena Paravel (France)
“Les Bienheureux,” Sofia Djama (France, Belgium)
“Marvin,” Anne Fontaine (France)
“Invisibile,” Pablo Giorgelli (Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Germany)
“Brutti e Cattivi,” Cosimo Gomez (Italy, France)
“The Cousin,” Tzahi Grad (Israel)
“Reparer les vivants,” Katell Quillevere (France, Belgium)
“The Testament,” Amichai Greenberg (Israel, Austria)
“No Date, No Signature,” Vahid Jalilvand (Iran)
“Los Versos Del Olvido,” Alireza Khatami (France, Germany, Netherlands, Chile)
“Nico, 1988,” Susanna Nicchiarelli (Italy)
“Krieg,” Rick Ostermann, Barbara Auer (Germany)
“West of Sunshine,” Jason Raftopoulos (Australia)
“Gotta Cenerentola,” Alessandro Rak, Ivan Cappiello, Marino Guarnieri, Dario Sansone (Italy)
“Under The Tree,” Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurdsson (Iceland, Denmark, Poland, Germany)
“La Vita in Comune,” Edoardo Winspeare (Italy)
CINEMA IN THE GARDEN
“Manuel,” Dario Albertini (Italy)
“Controfigura,” Ra Di Martino (Italy, France, Morocco, Switzerland)
“Woodshock,” Kate Mulleavy, Laura Mulleavy (U.S.)
“Nato A Casal Di Principe,” Bruno Oliviero (Italy, Spain)
“Suburra — The Series,” Michele Placido, Andrea Molaioli, Giuseppe Capotondi (Italy)
“Tuers,” Francois Truokens, Jean-Francois Hensgens (Belgium, France)
VENICE VIRTUAL REALITY
“Melita,” Nicolas Alcala (U.S.)
“La Camera Insabbiata,” Laurie Anderson, Huang Sin-Chien (U.S.)
“The Last Goodbye,” Gabo Arora (U.S.)
“My Name Is Peter Stillman,” Lysander Ashton, Leo Warner (U.K.)
“Alice, The Virtual Reality Play,” Mathias Chelebourg (France)
“Arden’s Wake Expanded,” Eugene YK Chung (U.S.)
“Greenland Melting,” Nonny De La Pena (U.S.)
“Bloodless,” Gina Kim (U.S.)
“Nothing Happens,” Uri Kranot, Michelle Kranot (Denmark, France)
“The Dream Collector,” Mi Li (China)
“Snatch VR Heist Experience,” Rafael Pavon, Nicolas Alcala (U.S.)
“Nefertiti,” Richard Mills, Kim-Leigh Pontin (U.K.)
“Proxima,” Mathieu Pradat (France)
“In The Pictures,” Qing Shao (China)
“Dispatch,” Edward Robles (U.S., U.K.)
“The Argos File,” Josema Roig (U.S.)
“Gomorra VR – We Own The Streets,” Enrico Roast (Italy)
“Draw Me Close, Chapters 1-2,” Jordan Tannahill (Canada, U.K.)
“The Deserted,” Tsai Ming-Liang (Taiwan)
“I Saw The Future,” Francois Vautier (France)
“Separate Silences,” David Wedel (Denmark)
“Free Whale,” Zhang Peibin (China)
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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