Anais Gutierrez
On Wednesday, the Venice Film Festival published the 22 list of contenders for the Golden Lion award. The 74th edition of the renown festival brings projects from all over the world, and the debut of streaming services.
The annual edition of the Venice Film Festival will start on August 30, kicking off the summer slate of movie festivals.
The 22 contenders for the Golden Lion
The Venice Film Festival just announced the list of 22 contenders to compete for the Golden Lion, and we’re officially heading to the summer film festival season. The Italian festival has become a major awards-season springboard in recent years. With the world premieres of major Oscars winners including ‘Spotlight’ and ‘La La Land.’
Venice will open with Alexander Payne’s ‘Downsizing,’ about a man, Matt Damon, who decides to shrink himself. And it will close on Sept. 9 with Takeshi Kitano’s gangster thriller ‘Outrage Coda.’
This year’s contenders for Venice’s top Golden Lion award include a handful of intriguing projects, including household names such as Benicio del Toro and George Clooney. Spanish director Benicio del Toro brings ‘The Shape of Water.’ Which stars Sally Hawkins as a woman who forges a relationship with a sea creature.
David Aronofsky’s thriller, ‘Mother’ starring Jennifer Lawrence, was not expected to debut at the festival but it will. George Clooney’s dark comedy ‘Suburbion’ starring Matt Damon, Julianne Moore, Josh Brolin, and Oscar Isaac will also compete.
Also in competition are, ‘Human Flow,’ a documentary about migration by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei; ‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” by Ireland’s auteur of tragic-comedy, Martin McDonagh; ‘The Third Murder,’ by Japan’s Hirokazu Koreeda; and ‘Mektour, My Love: Canto Uno” by French-Tunisian director Abdellatif Kechiche, director of the Cannes winner ‘Blue is the Warmest Color.’
This year’s jury will be lead by actress Annette Berning, who along with other jury members will decide this year’s Golden Lion winner and other prizes.
Studio slate and streaming services taking on the Festival
While the Cannes Film Festival in May did not have any studio pics, the Venice lineup this year looks set to bolster the Lido’s growing reputation as a launching pad for awards-season titles.
Paramount Pictures is launching Clooney’s ‘Suburbicon,’ Aronofsky’s ‘Mother’ and Payne’s ‘Downsizing.’ Which is all set to screen in Toronto.
Fox Searchlight will also launch two Golden Lion hopefuls which are in the main competition, Del Toro’s Cold War-era fantasy ‘The Shape of Water.’
The dark thriller ‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,’ directed by Martin McDonagh, which stars Frances McDormand as a feisty middle-aged mother who challenges a small-town police chief, played by Woody Harrelson, after her daughter is murdered and the killer can’t be found.
As for Universal Studios, it will bow ‘Victoria & Abdul,’ a period piece by director Stephen Frears about the real-life friendship between a young Indian Muslim clerk and Queen Victoria, played by Judi Dench.
Frears and Dench also collaborated on Oscar-nominated “Philomena,” which launched from Venice in 2013. “Victoria & Abdul” is playing out of the competition. Streaming services are also saying present in the festival.
Amazon Studios will launch competition entry ‘Human Flow,’ Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s take on the global refugee crisis. The movie was filmed in 23 countries over the course of more than a year.
Netflix will be in Venice with its first Italian original show, ‘Suburra,’ about mobsters and politicians in present-day Rome. The streaming service will also screen its Errol Morris series “Wormwood,” which is not a world premiere.
As previously announced, Netflix will also bow original film “Our Souls at Night,” starring Robert Redford and Jane Fonda, who will both receive honorary Golden Lions.
Other entries and going on virtual reality
Asia is represented at Venice in ‘Angels Wear White’ by China’s Vivian Qu and Japanese festival circuit darling Hirokazu Koreada’s in the competition.
Entries from Europe include ‘Mektoub, My Love: Canto Uno’, Kechiche’s follow-up to ‘Blue Is the Warmest Color,’ and de Aranoa’s ‘Loving Pablo,’ in which Javier Bardem plays drug lord Pablo Escobar.
Italian titles competing are Paolo Virzi’s English-language dramedy ‘The Leisure Seeker,’ starring Mirren and Sutherland as a runaway couple on a cross-country journey, and Andrea Pallaoro’s ‘Hannah,’ starring Charlotte Rampling as a woman struggling with her identity after her husband is imprisoned. Both clearly have international elements, Barbera noted.
U.S. writer-director Paul Schrader’s ‘First Reformed,’ starring Ethan Hawke, is also competing for a Golden Lion. Hawke plays an ex-military chaplain grieving over the death of his son. He becomes entangled with a member of his church (Amanda Seyfried) whose husband commits suicide and delves into the church’s suspicious affairs.
Another British entry is Andrew Haigh’s Oregon-set ‘Lean on Pete,’ which stars Charlie Plummer as a teenager who takes a summer job with a washed-up horse trainer, played by Steve Buscemi, and befriends a failing racehorse.
The Festival is also debuting a new competitive section dedicated to films made for virtual-reality viewing, which will feature 22 entries and is touted as the first competition for VR works at a major fest.
They include ‘La Camera Insabbiata,’ co-directed by Laurie Anderson and Huang Hsin-Chien, and ‘The Deserted’ by Taiwan-based auteur Tsai Ming-Liang, a Venice Golden Lion winner for ‘Vive glamour’ in 1994.
Source: AV Club
