The Venice Film Festival schedule is out — Martin McDonagh’s “Wild Horse Nine” and Werner Herzog’s “Bucking Fastard” are playing on the second day, which means they’ll join Danny Boyle’s “Ink” at Telluride.
Much of the fest is frontloaded, as usual, with the big titles, including McDonagh, Herzog, Boyle, Paul Schrader, Lance Oppenheim, Hirokazu Koreeda, and Lee Chang-dong, screening in the first five days.
Interestingly, there’s a slot on Thursday, September 10, for a film “yet to be announced.” The runtime is around 90 minutes. No word on the mystery film, which is either Competition or Out-of-Competition — not sure yet — but I decided to reach out to a source with knowledge, who tells me the film was held back from the original announcement due to “security reasons” and will be announced shortly.
What could it be? I’m as puzzled as you are — maybe it’s an Iranian film, or Michel Franco’s Israel-set historical film, but it’s certainly caught the attention of festival hounds this morning. More to come, I’m sure.
Scratch the 50/50. It's more like 70% mixed-to-negative from what I've seen, but it's got a few defenders, which leaves me very curious.