First Look: Luca Guadagnino's ‘Queer'

We have our first image of Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer” which is set to premiere in competition at the Venice Film Festival. It’s a wide angled shot of Daniel Craig’s character snapping some photographs in Mexico.

It also looks like the 3-hour cut Guadagnino had back in May has been edited down— the film now clocks in at 2 hours 31 minutes. It should be noted that, earlier today, Venice had the film clocking in at 175 minutes on their site. Still, it’s another lengthy film in what promises to be a Venice lineup filled with long films.

Guadagnino is a mainstay on the Lido, having premiered many of his films there. Cannes did see “Queer”, but I’m told, after “Challengers” was pulled from Venice last year, Guadagnino promised Venice boss Alberto Barbera he’d be bringing “Queer” to this year’s edition of the fest.

Based on William S. Burroughs’ controversial novel, Guadagnino’s film wrapped production last July and recently wrapped editing. The film stars Daniel Craig, Drew Starkey, Jason Schwartzman, Lesley Manville, Omar Appolo, Henrique Zaga, Andres Duprat, Ariel Shulman, Drew Droege, Colin Bates, and filmmakers Lisandro Alonso, David Lowery, and Michael Borremans.

The source material is loosely inspired by Burroughs’ own life, and his time spent in Mexico, surviving on the subsidies handed out by the US government following World War II, not to mention his struggles and dependence on heroin and romantic obsession with a young student named Eugene Allerton (Starkey).

Burroughs‘ work was written as a quasi-sequel to his semi-autobiographical 1953 novel “Junkie.” Its homosexual themes were deemed too controversial at the time for readers, and it went unpublished until 1985.

Guadagnino released his “Challengers,” starring Zendaya, Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor, in April, to very positive reviews, he might have quite the year with these two films — both could be campaigned for awards.