(Paris) A new generation of stars, a biopic-event and a competition marked by the presence of Netflix: the 79e Venice Film Festival hits hard, as soon as it opens on Wednesday.
Posted at 9:12
Twenty-three films are in the running for the Golden Lion, awarded on September 10, in a festival which is more than ever a launching pad for Hollywood, present in force, before the Oscar season.
The most anticipated is a fictionalized version of the life of Marilyn Monroe, Blonde hairbased on a novel by Joyce Carol Oates, and played by actress and former James Bond girlAna de Armas.
In gestation for ten years, the film will be shown shortly after the 60th anniversary of the death of the actress to the status of icon.
It is one of the four Netflix productions in competition this year: Venice has become a place of choice for the platform, which cannot claim Cannes trophies because its films are not released in theaters in France. For this 79e edition, the platform will also present the opening film, White Noiseby New Yorker Noah Baumbach.
The director of Frances Ha and Marriage Storysometimes referred to as the new Woody Allen, adapts the star of the letters Don DeLillo, with his partner Greta Gerwig and Adam Driver.
Among the other renowned filmmakers in competition, Oscar-winning director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (the Revenant, birdman), for a film in the form of a homecoming in Mexico, Joanna Hogg (The Souvenir) or Martin McDonagh (Three Billboards).
Succession
If the jury chaired by the American actress Julianne Moore is almost equal, the competition remains unbalanced, with only eight directors, one year after the coronation of the French Audrey Diwan for The eventon abortion.
PHOTO RICHARD SHOTWELL, INVISION ARCHIVES/AP
The president of the jury, Julianne Moore
On the star side, Penelope Cruz, Cate Blanchett, as conductor in TarCatherine Deneuve who is to receive an honorary Golden Lion, Colin Farell and Willem Dafoe could make the trip to the Lido.
And a whole new generation ready to take over could taste the charms of the lagoon: Timothée Chalamet, 26, who ignited the red carpet last year with Dunescelebrates his reunion with the director of Call Me By Your NameLuca Guadagnino, in a film presented as a “cannibalistic romance”.
Will British pop phenomenon Harry Styles, 28, make a detour to the Venetian sands? He is in the credits with Florence Pugh of Don’t Worry Darlingout of competition, signed by his partner Olivia Wilde.
And star seed of the year could be Sadie Sink, 20, revealed on the show Stranger Thingswho plays opposite Brendan Fraser as an obese family man in The Whaleby Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream).
Beside the glamour, the veteran of international film festivals, founded 90 years ago, does not forget politics and issues of creative freedom: its director Alberto Barbera insisted on selecting, among the two Iranians in competition, Jafar Panahi. Golden lion for The circle in 2000, he was recently detained to serve a six-year sentence for “propaganda against the regime”.
A Ukrainian documentary must also be presented out of competition, when the opiate scandal in the United States will be at the center of a shocking documentary.
France has five films in competition, including Other people’s children by Rebecca Zlotowski with Virginie Efira, Minea family portrait by Roschdy Zem, or even Athenaa fiction by Romain Gavras, written and produced by Ladj Ly, about a revolt in the suburbs.
After The Fatherwho had won two Oscars, the French filmmaker-writer Florian Zeller pursues his Anglo-Saxon dream by offering himself Hugh Jackman, Laura Dern and again Anthony Hopkins for The sonadapted from his play on father-son relationships.