Some of the year’s most anticipated films are eyeing debuts at the 81st Venice International Film Festival.
As one of the most prestigious festivals for film, it goes without saying that there will be some A list cinema on display at the festival, but we finally have an idea as to what we should be expecting come the end of August.
A new report from Variety suggests a stacked lineup for the upcoming festival and one of the key kickoffs for the awards circuit. The following films will be screened at the festival:
Joker: Folie à Deux will debut at the festival ahead of its October wide release, as part of the competition slate. The film stars Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga and is directed by Todd Phillips (The Hangover). Also in the competition slate is Pablo Larraín’s Maria, starring Angelina Jolie. The film is a biopic about American-Greek opera singer Maria Callas.
Joining those two are Luca Guadagnino’s follow-up to Challengers, Queer, and Julian Schnabel’s In the Hand of Dante. Queer stars Daniel Craig as a heroin-addicted expat living in Mexico who gets infatuated with a character played by Drew Starkey (Outer Banks).
In the Hand of Dante however, is based on the book of the same name which follows an interweaving plot that combines the writing of The Divine Comedy with a present-day plot about a literature expert appraising the aforementioned poem. The film has an all-star cast with Oscar Isaac playing both Dante and the appraiser. Gal Gadot, Gerard Butler, Jason Momoa, Al Pacino and Martin Scorsese also play roles in the film.
Also possibly premiering is Johnny Depp’s Modi, a film about the Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani. The film stars Riccardo Scamarcio and Al Pacino. Despite a full slate yet to be announced and presumably consisting of primarily non-American or English films, we do have the names of two films: Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths and Walter Salles’ I’m Still Here.
Wolfs, directed by Jon Watts (Spider-Man: Homecoming), will premiere out of competition and stars Brad Pitt and George Clooney as lone fixers who find themselves hired for the same job. Similarly, Ron Howard’s Eden will likely premiere out of competition. The film stars an ensemble cast consisting of Ana de Armas, Jude Law, Daniel Brühl, and Sydney Sweeney, who travel to an island ready to start anew and acts as a survival thriller.
The 81st Venice Film Festival will begin August 28 and end September 7. The jury will be presided over by French actress Isabelle Huppert.
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