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The Venice Film Festival opened on Wednesday, with Julia Roberts, George Clooney, Cate Blanchett and Emma Stone among the stars walking the red carpet. France is strongly represented this year with three films in the main competition, including The Wizard of the Kremlin by Olivier Assayas, starring Jude Law as a young Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n
The 82nd edition of the festival \u2013 known as the “La Mostra” \u2013 opens Wednesday evening with La Grazia \u2013 a love story from Venice regular Paolo Sorrentino, starring longtime collaborator Toni Servillo and set in their native Italy.<\/p>\n
Two-time Oscar winner and Sideways American director Alexander Payne takes over from France’s Isabelle Huppert<\/a> to head this year’s jury, tasked with awarding the Golden Lion best film to one of the 21 main competition contenders on 6 September.<\/p>\n He is joined by French director St\u00e9phane Briz\u00e9<\/a>, Italian director Maura Delpero, Romanian director and producer Cristian Mungiu, Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof<\/a>, Brazilian actress and screenwriter Fernanda Torres, and Chinese actress Zhao Tao.<\/p>\n The 2024 Golden Lion went to Spanish director Pedro Almodovar, The Room Next Door, starring Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton.<\/p>\n French director Olivier Assayas has chosen a prestigious international casting for his film The Wizard of the Kremlin (Le Mage du Kremlin), an adaptation of Giuliano da Empoli’s best-selling novel<\/a>.<\/p>\n It chronicles Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rise to power in the 1990s from the perspective of one of his closest advisors. Jude Law plays the Kremlin strongman on screen beside Paul Dano as the spin-doctor Vadim Baranov accompanied by Alicia Vikander.<\/p>\n Fran\u00e7ois Ozon has taken on the task of adapting Albert Camus’ classic novel L’Etranger (The Stranger), to the screen in black and white, with Benjamin Voisin as the young Meursault beside Rebecca Marder, Swann Arlaud, Pierre Lottin and Denis Lavant.<\/p>\n \u2018By humans, for humans\u2019: French dubbing industry speaks out against AI threat<\/a><\/p>\n Val\u00e9rie Donzelli’s new film A pied d’oeuvre (On the job) is also in competition, starring Bastien Bouillon. Based on a novel by Franck Court\u00e8s, Donzelli’s seventh feature follows a successful photographer who abandons everything to devote himself to writing.<\/p>\n The festival’s closing film is dystopian thriller Chien 51 (Dog 51) by C\u00e9dric Jimenez with Gilles Lellouche and Ad\u00e8le Exarchopoulos. Set in a futuristic Paris divided by social class and dominated by artificial intelligence, it also stars Louis Garrel, Romain Duris, and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi.<\/p>\n French director Julia Ducournau, who won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2021<\/a> for Titane, will chair the parallel Orizzonti section, a competitive section geared towards young talent and independent productions.<\/p>\n International film festivals have become places of protest and drawing attention to causes and Venice is no exception.<\/p>\n The Voice of Hind Rajab by two-time Oscar nominee French-Tunisian Kaouther Ben Hania, set in Gaza<\/a>, is likely to grab a few headlines due to its link to current affairs.<\/p>\n It revisits the death, in early 2024 in Gaza, of a Palestinian girl who “was trying to flee with her family during an Israeli attack” and features the original recordings of emergency calls.<\/p>\n Before the start of the festival, a group of Italian film professionals Venice4Palestine, called on organisers not to remain silent on the Gaza war, and a protest on the Lido is scheduled for Saturday.<\/p>\n ‘I want a loud death’: Cannes Film Festival to honour slain Gaza journalist<\/a><\/p>\n “In Venice, all the spotlight will be on the world of cinema, and we all have a duty to make known the stories and voices of those who are being massacred, even with the complicit indifference of the West,” read an open letter signed by directors and actors including Matteo Garrone and Alice Rohrwacher.<\/p>\n The group called for the festival to disinvite actors Gerard Butler and Gal Gadot \u2013 appearing in Julian Schnabel’s In the Hand of Dante \u2013 who it said “ideologically and materially” support Israel’s actions.<\/p>\n The festival’s artistic director<\/a>, Alberto Barbera, told French news agency AFP that “the festival is obviously not closed in a bubble” and directors today are “reflecting on the major problems that afflict us daily on a global level, from wars to the return of nuclear anxiety, obviously the occupation of Gaza and Palestine but also the many dictatorships resurging throughout the world.”<\/p>\n Venice, a highlight of the international film circuit, will serve up a healthy dose of big budget films \u2013 such as Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as an ageing wrestler.<\/p>\n Greece’s Yorgos Lanthimos teams up with Emma Stone (Poor Things) for sci-fi Bugonia about a high-powered executive kidnapped by people who think she is an alien.<\/p>\n Jim Jarmusch makes his debut in the main Venice lineup with Father, Mother, Sister, Brother, which he has called “a funny and sad film” starring Cate Blanchett, Adam Driver and Tom Waits.<\/p>\n Hollywood megastar Julia Roberts will make her Venice debut in Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt, about a sexual assault case at a prestigious American university. The film is playing out of competition.<\/p>\n Often considered a launching pad for the Oscars, the Mostra offers a large space for Hollywood films and streaming platforms, unlike its Cannes<\/a> competitor, which champions theatrical releases.<\/p>\nFrenchies on the frontline<\/h2>\n
Gaza on and off screen<\/h2>\n
Hollywood Streaming<\/h2>\n