The 82nd Venice Film Festival launches this Wednesday, bringing a wave of Hollywood and international talent to the Lido for an 11-day celebration of cinema. Twenty-one films will compete for the coveted Golden Lion, with a lineup blending political intrigue, high-stakes drama, and bold artistic visions.
Among the most anticipated entries are Olivier Assayas’s The Wizard of the Kremlin, with Jude Law portraying Vladimir Putin’s rise to power; Kathryn Bigelow’s A House of Dynamite, a nuclear crisis thriller; Guillermo del Toro’s lavish Frankenstein starring Oscar Isaac; and Yorgos Lanthimos’s Bugonia, reuniting him with Oscar-winner Emma Stone.
Other notable contenders include Benny Safdie’s wrestling drama The Smashing Machine with Dwayne Johnson, Kaouther Ben Hania’s politically charged The Voice of Hind Rajab, Park Chan-wook’s revenge thriller No Other Choice, and Shu Qi’s directorial debut Nuhai.
Beyond the main competition, Julia Roberts makes her Venice debut in Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt, while Julian Schnabel’s In the Hand of Dante and Gus Van Sant’s Dead Man’s Wire add to the star-studded roster. Documentaries from Werner Herzog, Laura Poitras, and Sofia Coppola promise to broaden the festival’s scope.
With Netflix fielding three major titles and runtimes stretching past two hours for many films, this year’s edition is set to test both audiences’ attention spans and the festival’s scheduling all while keeping one eye on the road to the Oscars.
+ There are no comments
Add yours