Venice will be from today until September 10 the world capital of cinema. This morning the 79th edition of the Mostra kicks off, which will feature the latest works by Darren Aronofsky, Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Todd Field and Noah Baumbach.
The New York director is in charge of opening the festival with White noise, an adaptation of Don DeLillo’s novel of the same title, with Adam Driver as Jack Gladney, the professor who becomes obsessed with death after a toxic cloud floods his city.
White noise is one of Netflix’s big bets for this season. The other is Blonde, the Marilyn Monroe biopic directed by Andrew Dominik, which will compete for the Golden Lion. The film, one of the most anticipated of the year, stars Ana de Armas and is based on the book by Joyce Carol Oates.
In 2008, Darren Aronofsky won the Golden Lion for The Wrestler. In this edition he will try to win the award again with a film whose first images have already aroused the interest of the public. The whale, which has Brendan Fraser as the protagonist. The once-handsome actor from The Mummy movies returns to the big screen in this film as a morbidly obese man.
The Sicilian director Luca Guadagnino is another of the old acquaintances of the Mostra. In this edition he will compete in the official section with Bones
The Italian presence at the Festival will be completed with the works of Susanna Nicchiarelli, who will take Chiara to the competition, the story of a follower of Saint Francis of Assisi who enters a convent; Gianni Amelio, who is competing with Il signore delle formiche, and Emanuele Crialese, who will present L’immensità, a family drama set in the 70s and starring Penélope Cruz.
The Spanish presence in the official section this year is reduced to the performance of Cruz in this Italian film, but in the main competition of the contest two films in Spanish can be seen. The Mexican Alejandro González Iñárritu will premiere Bardo, a false chronicle of a few truths, a nostalgic story starring Daniel Giménez-Cacho, which will also be distributed by Netflix.
And Santiago Miter will participate with Argentina, 1985, an Amazon Prime production based on real events in which Ricardo Darín and Peter Lanzani give life to prosecutors Julio Strassera and Luis Moreno Ocampo who managed to bring to trial the bosses of the Argentine military dictatorship .
It also has a judicial background, Saint Omer, by Alice Diop, a French production where a writer attends a media trial looking for inspiration for his new novel. There will be more directors in the official section of the Mostra. The British Joanna Hogg aspires to the Golden Lion with The eternal daughter, a family drama surrounded by mystery whose cast is led by Tilda Swinton. And she will also participate with a film about family relationships, Les enfants des autres, the French Rebecca Zlotowski.
Beyond looking for a selection of the best cinema of the year, Alberto Barbera, director of the Mostra, and his team have also launched a demand, asking for the release of the Iranian director Jafal Panahi, who was imprisoned in his country a few weeks ago. Thus, the Venice Film Festival will program No bears, Panahi’s latest work, which is a love story. There is more Iranian presence in Venice, because the festival management has also selected Beyond the wall, by Vahid Jalilvand, for the official competition.
The official section is completed with Our ties, by Roschdy Zem; Love life, by the Japanese Koji Fukada; Monica, by Andrea Pallaoro; The Banshees of Inisherin by Martin McDonagh and Athena by Romain Gavras. In addition, the documentaries All the beauty and the blodshed (Laura Poitras) and Un cuplé (Frederick Wiseman) will be screened.
