The Venice Film Festival will be held at the end of August, butting up against Telluride as the hive mind begins to shape what will be the Oscar race. True, the Oscar race is probably over with The Odyssey, and so far there doesn’t appear to be any competition. Variety calls the list “subdued.”
What looks good to me is not Ink because I could live the rest of my life and not have to watch a movie about the Right by the Left. Reverse it and I might be interested. Alex Gibney’s Musk is sure to be yet more echo chamber hysteria and I dread it.
But Casey Affleck’s movie Company looks very interesting and very strange:
The narrative begins on a winter night in 1975 when a mysterious woman interrupts a holiday gathering to share the story of Tom, an aging hermit who rescued a stranded actress decades earlier. To pass the time, the actress recounts an older tale of a farming couple taking in a troubled drifter, mirroring a period when grisly murders plagued the frontier. The film acts as a deep psychological meditation on grief, vengeance, and forgiveness. [1, 2]
Bucking Fastard also looks good with Rooney and Cate Mara, directed by the great Werner Herzog. Wild Horse Nine I hope is good. Some of these are probably interesting as well, though admittedly it’s not exactly the world’s most exciting list. Hopefully there will be some good work on display which can be appreciated outside the Oscar race if Best Picture is indeed over.
From Variety:
COMPETITION
“Ink,” Danny Boyle (opening film)
“Company,” Casey Affleck
“Kami Nour” (“A Bit of Light”), Ali Asgari
“Ritorno a Buenos Aires,” Marco Bechis
“Un Bon Petit Soldat” (“A Good Little Soldier”), Stéphane Brizé
“Il Fuoco Che Ti Porti Dentro,” Edoardo De Angelis
“Kvinde Ukendt” (“Woman Unknown”), May El-Toukhy
“Bucking Fastard,” Werner Herzog
“15/18 (A Place to Heal),” Cèdric Kahn
“Dau,” Ilya Khrzhanovsky
“Look Back,” Hirokazu Kore-eda
“Ga-Neung-Han Sa-Rang” (“Possible Love”), Lee Chang-Dong
“Wild Horse Nine,” Martin McDonagh
“It Will Happen Tonight,” Nanni Moretti
“Primetime,” Lance Oppenheim
“The Echo Chamber,” Andrea Pallaoro
“Un Peu Avant Minuit” (“A Bit Before Midnight”), Nicolas Pariser
“L’Estranea,” Paolo Strippoli
“Mr. Nelson, Did You Kill People?,” Shinya Tsukamoto
“Bunker,” Florian Zeller
VENICE OPEN (OUT OF COMPETITION — FICTION)
“Dio Ride,” Giovanni Veronesi (closing film)
“Nessun Dolore” (“No Pain”), Gianni Amelio
“Makikiraan Po” (“Let Us Through, Dear Ancestors”), Lav Diaz
“Father Joe,” Barthélémy Grossmann
“Scherzetto” (“Trick”), Mario Martone
“Place to Be,” Kornél Mundruczó
“No Paradise if You Are Killed by a Woman,” Halkawat Mustafa
“Arrested Memory,” Sabu
“The Basics of Philosophy,” Paul Schrader
“Un Bon Avocat,” Tristan Séguéla
“Jupiter,” Alexander Smia
OUT OF COMPETITION — NON-FICTION
“Be Brave,” Francesco Carrozzini
“What Love Builds,” Russell Crowe
“Burgundy,” Michael Dweck, Gregory Kershaw
“Musk,” Alex Gibney
“The Road to Jericho,” Amos Gitai
“Al Mowaten Osama” (“Citizen Osama”), Ahmed Hassaouna
“Union Town,” Barbara Kopple
“Holy Wood Dust,” Victor Kossakovsky
“Listy” (“Letters From the Silenced Country”), Andrei Kutsila
“Biografía De Jorge Luis Borges,” Mariano Llinás
“My Undesirable Friends: Part II – Exile,” Julia Loktev
“Boatbuilders,” Luke Lorentzen
“Imperium,” Sergei Loznitsa
“Shumei – The Living Legacy of Kabuki,” Takashi Miike
“Queer Edward II,” Theo Rollason
“Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger,” Dylan Southern, Will Lovelace
“Dust,” Tsai Ming-Liang
“Everest: The Other Side,” Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin
“From Inside Out — The Architecture of Peter Zumthor,” Wim Wenders
SPECIAL SCREENING
“Dai Nostri Inviati. La Rai Racconta La Mostra del Cinema di Venezia 2001-2012,” Giuseppe Giannotti, Enrico Salvatori, Nicoletta Berardi
FILM ON FILMS
“Juso Per Ferie,” Karen Di Porto
“Nino – Un Film Su Nino Rota,” Walter Fasano
“The Pervert’s Guide to Utopias,” Sophie Fiennes
“Joie De Vivre,” Luca Guadagnino
“Twist and Shoot Mister Suzuki,” Yves Montmayeur
“Intermission,” Yonfan
OUT OF COMPETITION — SHORTS
“Flesh Impact,” Maggie Gyllenhaal
“Halayon” (“Wild Asparagus”), Avi Mograbi
“They’re Here,” Laura Poitras, Rachel Lauren Mueller
OUT OF COMPETITION — SERIES
“Peccato,” Valerio Vestoso
HORIZONS
“La Ragazza Con La Leica,” Alina Marazzi (opening film)
“Yak Mai” (“The Burning Giants”), Phuttiphong Aroonpheng
“Cudze Rzeczy” (“What Belongs to Others”), Grzegorz Dębowski
“Una Storia,” Anna Foglietta
“La Città Dei Vivi,” Edoardo Gabriellini
“Moragheb” (“Falling House”), Mohsen Gharaei
“Too Much Sugar,” Robert Greene
“The Difficult Bride,” Rubaiyat Hossain
“La Maison Du Vent,” Auguste Bernard Kouemo Yanghu
“I Figli Della Scimmia,” Tommaso Landucci
“Mia Mera Sti Zoi Tis Tzo: Kefalaio Faidra” (“A Day in the Life of Jo: Chapter Phaedra”), Jaqueline Lentzou
“Oase” (“Oasis”), Jannis Lenz
“Do Kraja Dana” (“Until the Day Ends”), Jelena Maksimović
“La Moula,” Jérôme Pierrat
“Lovers in the Blue Night,” Anuparna Roy
“Un Détour Par Diane,” Ann Sirot, Raphaël Balboni
“The Color of the Sun,” Xavier Tera
“Eklipse,” Manuel Wetscher
“Huangyan Shenghuo” (“Big Little Things”), Michelle Zhou
VENICE SPOTLIGHT
“Sumo: Spirit Weighs Nothing,” Erik Shirai
“Hiwar Ma’ Albahr” (“Conversation With the Sea”), Muayad Alayan
“Hombre Al Agua,” Gael García Bernal
“Serpenti,” Roberto De Paolis Maino
“Furies,” Rami Kodeih
“Guria,” Levan Koguashvili
“Földszint” (“Ground Floor”), Gábor Reisz
“Eu Contez” (“I Matter”), Alina Șerban
Elsa Keslassy contributed to this report.
