Venice Will Be Packed … With American Movies [Predictions]

The most commonly-asked question I get these days about film festivals is a rather simple one: Cannes or Venice?

Berlin has always been third in line and it seems like it will stay that way for the time being. For decades, the obvious answer would be Cannes, but, ever since Alberto Barbera took over the reigns of the Venice Film Festival, the rivalry has heated up. Why? Well, quite simply, because of a single evening in March.

The Venice Film Festival has turned into a major launch pad for the Oscars. There’s been greater leniency to launch “Oscar bait” on the Lido. Meanwhile, Cannes takes place in May and big studios are reluctant to have their prized possessions debut this early on the Croisette, sometimes to moans and groans from the difficult-to-impress critics that tends to attend the festival.

Of course, if you ask any filmmaker, Cannes is still the Mecca of cinema and almost any director would choose it over Venice. The Venice prestige is just not the same. Yes, Hollywood is much friendlier to going to the Venezia, but the rest of the world will almost always choose Cannes. The only reason they wouldn’t is if their film was just not ready or Venice gave them a competition slot and Cannes didn’t.

This year’s Cannes Film Festival will again have elite filmmakers competing for the Palme d’Or, maybe the only film prize that is more prestigious than the Best Picture Oscar (the recent “CODA” win didn’t help its case either). Partaking in last year’s Palme d’Or sweepstakes, eventually won by Julia Ducournau’s “Titane,” were world class filmmakers such as Carax, Verehoeven, Farhadi, Wes Anderson, Weerasethakul, Dumont, Lapid, Audiard, Noé, Hong and Baker.

This year’s 75th edition will have new works by Cronenberg, Mungiu, Dardenne, Denis, Kore-eda, Östlund, Park, Reichardt, and Gray.

As far as world cinema goes, the non-English filmmakers going to this year’s 90th edition of the Venice Film Festival will primarily be spearheaded by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s “Bardo,” and a still-untitled secret project from Jafar Panahi.

Those are the two big names I could come up with after hours of research. Other international filmmakers tipped for this coming September’s edition of Venice will be included in my below first predictions.

With the knowledge that Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” David Fincher’s “The Killer” Steven Spielberg’s “The Fablemans” and David O. Russell’s “Canterbury Glass” will probably bypass Venice/Telluride/TIFF,” this year’s Venice lineup is still shaping up to be one of its most impressive in years.

English-Language Films

Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Poor Things”
Ari Aster’s “Disappointment Blvd”
Jonathan Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest”
Wes Anderson’s “Asteroid City”
Andrew Dominik’s “Blonde”
Noah Baumbach’s “White Noise”
Damien Chazelle’s “Babylon”
Darren Aronofsky’s “The Whale”
Todd Field’s “TAR”
Paul Schrader’s “The Master Gardener”
Martin McDonagh’s “The Banshees of Inisherin”
Luca Guadagnino’s “Bones & All”
Florian Zeller’s “The Son”
Sarah Polley’s “Women Talking”
Ira Sachs’ “Passages”
Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist”
Joanna Hogg’s “The Eternal Daughter”

Foreign-Language Films

Alejandro González Inarritu’s “Bardo”
Jafar Panahi’s “Untitled”
Rebecca Zlotowski’s “Les Enfants Des Autres”
Emmanuel Crialese’s “L’Immensita”
Alice Diop’s “Saint Omer”
Koji Fukada’s “Love Life”
Andrea Palaoro’s “Monica”
Amat Eacalante’s “The State of the Empire”
Miguel Gomes’ “Savagery”
Lisandro Alonso’s “Eureka”
Fatih Akin’s “Rheingold”
Helena Wittmann’s “Human Flowers of Flesh”
Christophe Honore’s “Le Monde d’Hier”

Notice the contrast?

Don’t get me wrong, Inarritu, Panahi, Gomes, Akin, Alonso and Fukada are nothing to slouch about, but it just doesn’t compare.