Cannes has been over for less than 72 hours and Screen Daily is already speculating as to whether Venice can overshadow it this year with the potential of a once-in-a-lifetime lineup.
As I mentioned last month, Alberto Barbera has a beautiful problem in his hands. He usually picks 4-6 American films in competition every year. This year he has more than a dozen A-list filmmakers who want to bring their US films to competition. Theres also a quota of 4-5 Italian films in competition. Which complicates things further for Barbera …
Between the Italian and American films, that’s already half the competition.
Of course, Barbera can’t choose 12-15 American titles in his competition. That would be absolute lunacy. He has already taken care of one film; Paul Schrader’s “The Master Gardener” will be screening out of competition due to the director being honoured with the Gold Lion Achievement in Excellence award.
You would imagine Venice regulars like Lanthimos, Glazer, Baumbach, Aronofsky and Guadagnino will be a part of the festivities.
We also have no idea if A24 has settled its dispute with Venice. This could be a game changer as they have new films from Ari Aster, Darren Aronofsky and Joanna Hogg all ready for a fall launch. If you remember, Barbera was very frustrated that he couldn’t nab Kelly Reichardt’s “First Cow” in 2019 due to the dispute.
There’s already rampant speculation of possible titles, including …
Alejandro González Inarritu’s “Bardo,” 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,” Jafar Panahi’s “No Bears,” Todd Field’s “TAR,” Martin McDonagh’s “The Banshees of Inisherin,” Luca Guadagnino’s “Bones & All,” Florian Zeller’s “The Son,” Roman Polanski’s “The Palace,” Sarah Polley’s “Women Talking,” Ira Sachs’ “Passages,” Joanna Hogg’s “The Eternal Daughter,” Maria Schrader’s “She Said,” Sebastian Lelio’s “The Wonders,” Miguel Gomes’ “Savagery,” Hong Sang-soo’s “Untitled,” Fatih Akin’s “Rheingold,” Rebecca Zlotowski’s “Les Enfants Des Autres,” Koji Fukada’s “Love Life” and Lisandro Alonso’s “Eureka.”
The second-tier potentials would be Christophe Honore’s “Le Monde d’Hier,” Emmanuel Crialese’s “L’Immensita,” Andrea Palaoro’s “Monica,” Alice Diop’s “Saint Omer,” Koji Fukada’s “Love Life,” Amat Eacalante’s “The State of the Empire,” Helena Wittmann’s “Human Flowers of Flesh,” Sally El Hosaini’s “The Swimmers,” Daina O. Pusic’s “Tuesday,” Teona Strugar Mitevska’s “The Happiest Man In The World”, Paolo Virzì “Siccità,” Ahmed Yassin Al Daradji’s “Hanging Gardens,” Yasmine Benkiran’s “Queens, Saara Saarela’s “Memory Of Water,” and Milad Alami’s “Opponent.”
Venice is not the primal stop for world cinema. That’s Cannes, but it is the launcher for Oscar season. US studios love the Lido because the critics there are less harsh and its dates are much closer to primal Oscar season.
Still, as far as world films go, you have the potential of seeing new works by Inarritu, Panahi, Polanski, Hong, Alonso, Gomes and Akin … We’ll be keeping an eye out on Venice in the weeks and months to come.