Joker 2, Angelina Jolie Start Awards Season

Alberto Barbera, it have to be mentioned, has finished it once more.

The long-running director of the Venice Film Festival, who efficiently repositioned the august Italian cinema occasion as an awards-season launchpad, on Tuesday unveiled another top-shelf lineup for the 81st Biennale (Aug. 28-Sept. 7). And, as Kendall Roy would say, it’s “all bangers, on a regular basis.”

Alongside tentpole studio sequels — Warner Bros. will kick off the pageant with the out-of-competition screening of Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and Todd Phillips returns to the Lido competitors with Joker: Folie à Deux, the follow-up to his 2019 Golden Lion-winner Joker — Barbera has chosen a tasty mixture of established auteurs and up-and-coming expertise that appears to attraction each to critics and international patrons.

Pedro Almodóvar is again in Venice with The Room Subsequent Door, the hotly-anticipated English-language function debut from the Oscar-winning Spanish director. Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore star within the drama, which has the backing of two studios, with Sony Classics releasing domestically and Warners dealing with a lot of the remainder of the world. Anticipate a serious awards push for the film, each for the 2 leads and Almodovar as a director after its Lido launch.

Awards eyes may even be on Angelina Jolie, who performs legendary opera diva Maria Callas in Maria, the brand new function from Chilean director Pablo Larrain. Larrain’s three earlier biopics — Jackie, Spencer and El Conde — all rode their Venice premieres to Oscar nominations.

By selecting Jon Watts’ motion thriller Wolfs, starring Brad Pitt and George Clooney, in an out-of-competition slot, Barbera additionally ensures the tabloids may have lots to do in Venice this 12 months. Anticipate a flood of “Brangelina” headlines surrounding the Wolfs world premiere, which might assist Sony forward of its September launch.

Venice favourite Luca Guadagnino is within the awards highlight along with his newest, the William S. Burroughs’ adaptation Queer. Re-teaming with Challengers screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes, the Name Me By Your Title director forged Daniel Craig in his most un-007 position up to now as an American expat in Nineteen Forties Mexico Metropolis who turns into infatuated with a youthful man (performed by Drew Starkey). Guadagnino all the time will get a heat reception on the Lido however that doesn’t all the time translate into worldwide or awards success. There was little pageant bounce from his final two Venice-bound options: Bones and All (2022) and Suspira (2018), although the director is using excessive in the meanwhile, due to the crossover success of Challengers, which was initially set as final 12 months’s Venice opener.

Focus Options may watch for the crucial response to Brady Corbet’s Venice competitors title The Brutalist earlier than positioning the movie for awards season. The epic drama, following 30 years within the lifetime of Hungarian-born Jewish architect László Tóth (performed by Adrien Brody), from surviving the Holocaust by way of emigration and visionary success in america, arrives with an outstanding quantity of hype and an all-star forged that features Felicity Jones, Joe Alwyn, Alessandro Nivola, Jonathan Hyde and Man Pearce. However Corbet’s final function, Vox Lux, which additionally premiered in Venice, divided audiences and was unable to transform its pageant bow into awards success.

On the documentary facet, a number of nonfiction options heading to Venice could possibly be within the awards dialog, together with Kevin Macdonald and Sam Rice-Edwards’ music doc One to One: John & Yoko, which focuses on John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s historic 1972 live shows at Madison Sq. Backyard; 2073 from Amy and Senna filmmaker Asif Kapadia; Separated from The Fog of Warfare director Errol Morris; and Andres Veiel’s Riefenstahl, a take a look at infamous German documentarian Leni Riefenstahl.

It’s up to now unclear whether or not A24 can be trying to awards love for its Venice headliner, Babygirl. However the erotic thriller, starring Nicole Kidman, Antonio Banderas, and Triangle of Disappointment actor Harris Dickinson, from Dutch director Halina Reijn (Intuition), seems like one other robust play from the New York mini-major as the corporate transitions in the direction of extra broad attraction style fare.

Equally, Justin Kurzel’s new function, The Order, a thriller a few group of bank-robbing white supremacists within the Pacific Northwest, may not be an apparent awards season contender, however the Venice competitors bow for the function, starring Nicholas Hoult, Jude Legislation and Tye Sheridan, units up the discharge properly for Vertical, which may even display The Order on the Toronto Movie Competition earlier than its U.S. rollout.

Berlin has dropped its well-liked tv sidebar Berlinale Collection, and Cannes has by no means totally warmed to the small display (and after final 12 months’s Cannes premiere of HBO’s ill-fated The Idol one can see their level). However Venice stays a booster of high-end, curated TV. Highlights on the Lido this 12 months embody Alfonso Cuarón’s psychological thriller Disclaimer, an AppleTV+ restricted sequence starring Cate Blanchett, Kevin Kline and Sacha Baron Cohen, which can bow worldwide on Oct. 11; and M – Son Of The Century from Darkest Hour director Joe Wright, an eight-part take a look at the rise of Italian fascist chief Benito Mussolini, performed by Italian star Luca Marinelli.

In contrast to Cannes and Berlin (and, beginning this 12 months, Toronto), Venice doesn’t have an official movie market however Barbara has lined up numerous still-available titles that might draw bidding motion this 12 months. FilmNation can be in search of patrons for Maria; Fremantle/CAA Media Finance and Fremantle subsidiary The Condo can be purchasing Queer to worldwide distributors; and The Match Manufacturing unit can be pushing Harvest, the competitors title from Greek director Athina Rachel Tsangari (Attenberg), that includes Caleb Landry Jones and Harry Melling in a drama described as a “tragicomic tackle a Western.”

Match Manufacturing unit can be promoting Fringe of Evening, the function debut from German-Turkish director Türker Süer, which premieres in Horizons Further, and Sanatorium Beneath the Signal of the Hourglass, an animated movie by the Quay Brothers, enjoying in Venice Days.

M-Enchantment might draw specialist consideration for Love, the newest within the Intercourse Goals Love trilogy from Norwegian auteur Dag Johan Haugerud. Intercourse, the primary function within the trilogy, premiered within the Panorama part of the Berlinale, the place it received a number of honors, together with the Europa Cinemas Label prize as finest European movie. M-Enchantment closed a number of worldwide offers for Intercourse out of Berlin and can be trying to do the identical for Love, which be the primary Norwegian movie to display in competitors in Venice for 38 years.