According to reliable sources, the heads of the Venice Film Festival are very close to nabbing both Woody Allen’s “A Rainy Day in New York” and Roman Polanski’s “An Officer and a Spy” as part of their upcoming lineup, set to unfold from August 28th to September 9th on the Lido. This could turn out to be a much-talked about event for the movie world, as Allen and Polanski have both been, by all accounts, blacklisted in Hollywood due to decade-old allegations of sexual misconduct resurfacing in the #MeToo era.
Polanski’s film is about Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a French-Jewish solider wrongly accused of spying for the Germans in Paris in the 1890s. The film is set to have many parallels to today’s world, the least of which is Polanski’s personal life, as Dreyfus was a victim of smear-campaigning and had his life ruined by the untruthful allegations. A timely topic, to say the least.
Meanwhile, when it comes to Allen, the intensified smear campaigns haven’t helped his career either; ex-partner Mia Farrow and alleged-son Ronan Farrow, took the opportunity to double-down on the close to 25-year-old allegations against him with carefully written op-eds and hit-pieces aimed squarely at the director. This led the film’s distributor, Amazon Studios, to have to cancel and shelve the release of ‘Rainy Day.’ The drama resulted in Allen suing Amazon for defamation and eventually gaining back control of the film.
Venice Film Festival boss Alberto Barbera would surely be making a statement if both movies end up world premiering at the 76th edition of the festival, which is, again, set to take place August 28th to September 9th.
More to come …
With the review embargo now lifted, the reviews are pretty good, or at least much better than a David Ayer movie has any right to be. The film currently sits at 96% on Rotten Tomatoes and 70 on Metacritic.