<\/p>\n
An apocalyptic satire starring Emma Stone and a Tinseltown road trip dramedy with George Clooney took the spotlight on Thursday at the Venice Film Festival.<\/p>\n
The unveiling of “Bugonia” with Stone and “Jay Kelly” starring Clooney delivered a high dose of Hollywood flair on the second day of the festival, with fans camping out alongside the red carpet for hours, \u00a0despite occasional showers, to see their idols.<\/p>\n
Clooney, however, was under the weather himself and a no-show at a press conference ahead of the premiere of his Netflix-produced film from director Noah Baumbach, due to a sinus infection.<\/p>\n
“Even movie stars get sick,” quipped Baumbach to journalists.<\/p>\n
Oscar winner Stone and director Yorgos Lanthimos, however, were in fine form as they appeared in front of the media.<\/p>\n
The duo, working together for a fifth feature, are hoping to repeat their successful formula from 2023 when “Poor Things” nabbed Venice’s top Golden Lion prize.<\/p>\n
The Greek director told journalists he hoped his “Bugonia” would “trigger people” to think more about human extinction.<\/p>\n
His high-energy film warns of the dangers of conspiracy theories, online echo chambers, the disappearance of bees, and a host of societal ills, including rural American poverty, the opioid crisis, and worker exploitation.<\/p>\n
Stone, who won the best actress Oscar for her “Poor Things” role, plays a powerful pharmaceutical executive kidnapped by a marginalised duo convinced she is destroying the world as an alien.<\/p>\n
“Humanity is facing a reckoning,” Lanthimos said. “People need to choose the right path in many ways. Otherwise, I don’t know how much time we have.”<\/p>\n
Lanthimos’s trademark absurdist humour is on display, alongside occasional graphic violence, in a work that also turns a sympathetic eye on the kidnappers.<\/p>\n
Jesse Plemons, who plays the kidnapping mastermind in the movie, said as he built the character he had sought to understand conspiracy theorists, who are often self-radicalised online.<\/p>\n
“I think there’s a risk in writing them off as being non-human,” he said.<\/p>\n
– Spiralling star –<\/p>\n
In “Jay Kelly”, Clooney plays a self-absorbed Hollywood star grappling with personal crisis over his career choices and parenting decisions. Adam Sandler plays his hard-pressed manager and Laura Dern his publicist.<\/p>\n
The film explores the masks people wear — or try to shed — and the protagonist is seen unravelling as he embarks on a road trip through France and Italy with his overworked entourage.<\/p>\n
Baumbach said he had wanted to work with Clooney for years.<\/p>\n
“I felt it was really important that the audience watching the movie have a relationship with the actor who’s playing the character,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Jay Kelly” is the first of three Netflix-produced features at the festival, with the US streaming giant keen to find a strong contender for a first Best Picture award at the next Academy Awards.<\/p>\n
Having sat out Venice in 2024, the platform has two other productions at Venice this year: “A House of Dynamite”, by Oscar-winning thriller specialist Kathryn Bigelow, and a star-studded remake of “Frankenstein”, by\u00a0Guillermo del Toro.<\/p>\n
Another hotly awaited film, to be shown Sunday, is Olivier Assayas’s “The Wizard of the Kremlin”, in which Jude Law portrays Russian President Vladimir Putin during his ascent to power.<\/p>\n
– Anti-war –<\/p>\n
Alongside the glitz came protest on the festival’s opening day, with demonstrators near the red carpet unfurling a “Free Palestine” and “Stop the Genocide” banner to denounce Israel’s war in Gaza.<\/p>\n
A group of Italian film professionals have also called on festival organisers to openly condemn Israel’s bombardment and siege of Gaza, while a larger protest is scheduled for Saturday.<\/p>\n
Among the 21 films in the main competition is a film about Gaza, “The Voice of Hind Rajab” by Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania, which has attracted heavyweight Hollywood attention.<\/p>\n
Actors Brad Pitt and Joaquin Phoenix, and directors Alfonso Cuaron and Jonathan Glazer, have joined the movie as executive producers, according to film business news outlet Deadline.<\/p>\n
Also premiering Thursday out of competition was “Ghost Elephants”, the latest documentary from German arthouse giant Werner Herzog, 82, who received a lifetime achievement award during the opening ceremony.<\/p>\n
adp-ams\/rmb<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An apocalyptic satire starring Emma Stone and a Tinseltown road trip dramedy with George Clooney took the spotlight on Thursday at the Venice Film Festival. The unveiling of “Bugonia” with Stone and “Jay Kelly” starring Clooney delivered a high dose of Hollywood flair on the second day of the festival, with fans camping out alongside […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1984956,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[310048,353071,32720,22860,346582,339940,339946,357073,333428,345734],"class_list":["post-1984955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-emma-stone","tag-free-palestine","tag-george-clooney","tag-hollywood","tag-hollywood-star","tag-jay-kelly","tag-noah-baumbach","tag-sinus-infection","tag-venice-film-festival","tag-yorgos-lanthimos"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Emma-Stone-stars-in-apocalyptic-satire-at-Venice-Film-Festival.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1984955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1984955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1984955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1984956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1984955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1984955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1984955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}