Venice Film Festival 2023: What to Watch For

A 12 months in the past, the Venice Film Festival had sufficient star energy to place even celebrity-worshiping Cannes on discover. Highlights have been shortly beamed everywhere in the world, together with the infamous “Don’t Worry Darling” kickoff that fueled limitless hypothesis concerning the movie’s director, Olivia Wilde, and her stars Florence Pugh and Harry Styles; the news convention the place an unexpectedly sagacious Timothée Chalamet predicted imminent societal collapse; and the tearful Brendan Fraser comeback that started on the Lido and culminated in his finest actor Oscar win.

But with out all of these celebrities, can Venice nonetheless go viral?

The eightieth version of the competition, which begins on Wednesday, will probably be considerably affected by persevering with strikes by the Screen Actors Guild (or SAG-AFTRA) and the Writers Guild of America, because the actors’ union has instructed its members to not do press for any studio films till the strike in opposition to these corporations is resolved. That places Venice in a bind, because it’s considered among the finest locations for Hollywood to unveil starry awards-season titles. Few main actors will even be permitted to attend this 12 months.

The actors’ strike has already value Venice its unique opening-night movie, Luca Guadagnino’s horny tennis romance, “Challengers,” since MGM delayed it from September to spring within the hopes that its lead, Zendaya, will probably be allowed to put it up for sale a number of months from now when the strikes may be resolved. (A low-profile Italian movie is opening as an alternative.) And I’ve heard of some extra starry fall movies that have been earmarked for Venice however opted for the Telluride Film Festival as an alternative, since that occasion is much less pushed by the photograph ops and news conferences which are now not possible in Italy.

Despite a few of these trims, the Venice lineup continues to be attractive, with an auteur-heavy listing that includes administrators almost as well-known as their leads. And Venice has proved earlier than that it might adapt to unfavorable limitations: Amid the pandemic in August 2020, the competition opted for a smaller, partly open-air version that also went on to premiere the eventual winner of the most effective image Oscar, “Nomadland.”

This 12 months’s program contains two movies about assassins-for-hire: David Fincher’s new thriller, “The Killer,” stars Michael Fassbender, whereas Richard Linklater’s “Hit Man” options the “Top Gun: Maverick” breakout Glen Powell, who additionally served as a co-writer. I’m curious concerning the off-kilter comedy “Poor Things,” directed by Yorgos Lanthimos (“The Favourite”) and starring Emma Stone as a sexually curious Frankenstein’s monster. Ditto “Maestro,” Bradley Cooper’s second directorial effort, after “A Star Is Born.” He’s forged himself because the composer Leonard Bernstein, reverse Carey Mulligan as Bernstein’s spouse, Felicia, and his choice to put on a prosthetic nostril has already set off controversy.

Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis” was an enormous hit final 12 months, however what is going to that story appear like via Sofia Coppola’s lens? The “Lost in Translation” and “Marie Antoinette” director places her highlight on Elvis Presley’s spouse with “Priscilla,” that includes Cailee Spaeny as teen bride Priscilla Presley and the “Euphoria” star Jacob Elordi because the singer. Ava DuVernay has tailored the Isabel Wilkerson e-book “Caste” for her new movie, “Origin,” which stars the Oscar nominee Aunjanue Ellis in an examination of racism and systemic oppression. And although Michael Mann has secured a guild exemption that will enable the forged of “Ferrari” to put it up for sale in Venice, I’m curious whether or not his new movie’s press-shy lead, Adam Driver (because the racer-turned-car-magnate Enzo Ferrari), is prepared to do a full-blown media blitz for the film, which the recent indie studio Neon is releasing in theaters on Christmas Day.

Two years after the discharge of his Oscar-winning breakthrough “Drive My Car,” the director Ryusuke Hamaguchi returns to the competition circuit with “Evil Does Not Exist,” which originated as a dialogue-free brief and have become a feature-length movie about ecological collapse. And two months after releasing his feature-length “Asteroid City,” the director Wes Anderson is choosing one thing shorter with “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar,” a 37-minute Roald Dahl adaptation for Netflix.

Harmony Korine premiered his greatest movie, “Spring Breakers,” at Venice again in 2012, and he’ll return with the mysterious “Aggro Dr1ft,” which stars the rapper Travis Scott and was shot solely utilizing infrared images. He’s not the one director taking possibilities: Pablo Larraín, the director of “Jackie” and “Spencer,” has set the divas apart for a second to make “El Conde,” a black-and-white supernatural fable that reimagines the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet as a bloodsucking vampire.

And then there are the probabilities that Venice itself is taking in relation to three auteurs: It is premiering “Dogman” from Luc Besson, who was accused of sexual assault however cleared by prosecutors; “The Palace” from Roman Polanski, who was convicted of illegal intercourse with a minor however fled earlier than he could possibly be sentenced; and “Coup de Chance” from Woody Allen, who has denied sexual abuse accusations by Dylan Farrow, his adopted daughter.

Venice can even function an elegy of kinds for the director William Friedkin, who died earlier this month and whose closing movie, the naval drama “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial,” will premiere posthumously on the Lido. Adapted by Friedkin from the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Herman Wouk, it stars Jake Lacy and Kiefer Sutherland.