Venice Film Festival to Kick Off With Steady Stream of Stars on Red Carpet and Politics Looming in the Background

The Venice Film Festival opens Wednesday with Danny Boyle’s “Ink,” a juicy exposé of how British tabloid The Sun propelled Rupert Murdoch’s rise to right-wing media baron, kicking off 11 days of buzzy movies, major stars and an unusually charged political debate on the Lido.

Venice director Alberto Barbera has described this year’s lineup as the event’s “most political” in recent years, with films tackling war, Palestine, immigration, climate change and shrinking political freedoms. And before the festival has even opened, several of those fault lines have already erupted into controversy.

At the same time, Venice remains one of the fall’s key launchpads for prestige movies, awards hopefuls and international titles looking to build momentum with distributors and buyers. Though U.S. studio and streamer presence this year is more muted than in past editions, the selection features a robust roster of hotly anticipated star-driven movies, some of which are making noise even before landing on the Lido.

“Ink” stars Jack O’Connell, Guy Pearce and Claire Foy are all expected on the Palazzo del Cinema red carpet for the Sept. 2 launch of the timely film, which has been acquired by Netflix for the U.S. and Latin America. 

Though U.S. studio and streamer presence this year is more muted than in past editions, the Venice selection features a robust roster of hotly anticipated star-driven titles, some of which are making noise even before landing on the Lido.

Robert Pattinson will be on hand to promote Lance Oppenheim’s “Primetime,” in which he plays “Dateline NBC” correspondent Chris Hansen. Hansen recently claimed that he walked away from a preview screening of “Primetime” in the offices of distributor A24 — which will release the film on Sept. 25 in the U.S. — after refusing to sign a legal agreement he described as unlike anything he has encountered in four decades on the beat. A source close to A24 told Variety that Hansen was asked to sign a standard NDA that all preview audiences must adhere to for an unreleased film. 

John Malkovich, Sam Rockwell and Steve Buscemi are all expected on the Venice red carpet for the Sept. 3 launch of Martin McDonagh’s “Wild Horse Nine” that sees Rockwell reunite with the “Three Billboards” director in a dark comedy about CIA agents.

Also on Sept. 3, Kate Mara, Rooney Mara and Orlando Bloom will be on the Lido to launch Warner Herzog’s “Bucking Fastard,” in which Bloom plays Gareth Mulroney, the lover of inseparable, synchronized sisters Jean and Joan Holbrooke (played by real-life sisters Kate and Rooney Mara).

Liam and Noel Gallagher are confirmed to be on the Venice red carpet on Sept. 5 for the launch of Disney+ doc “Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger,” about the British band’s reunion world tour which captures the moment the two rocker brothers reconciled after 15 years without contact.

Penélope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Stephen Graham, and Paul Dano will be disembarking on the lagoon Sept. 8 to promote marriage crisis drama “Bunker,” one of the most anticipated films of the fall festival circuit in which Cruz and Bardem appear on-screen as husband and wife. “Bunker” hails from playwright-turned-filmmaker Florian Zeller, who won two Oscars with his feature debut “The Father.” Sony Pictures Classics is handling the U.S. release, while FilmNation represents the film internationally.

Also on Sept. 8, Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney will be back in Venice with Elon Musk doc “Musk,” an incisive nearly four-hour piece probing the world’s richest man and influential “inventor-entrepreneur” that is expected to feature several explosive revelations. Musk has already called it “a hit piece” sight unseen.

The politics surrounding the festival, meanwhile, are unlikely to remain in the background.

In late August, Barbera came under fire from Ukrainian officials for the inclusion of dissident Russian director Ilya Khrzhanovsky’s competition entry “DAU,” which they claimed has Russian state links. Barbera took to social media to deny that allegation: “DAU is not a Russian film; it is not pro-Putin propaganda; it is a film of denunciation of totalitarian regimes and their intrusion into the lives of citizens to limit their freedom.”  

Last week, the fest added “NAZA,” a new hot-button documentary from Oscar-winning “No Other Land” directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, to the competition lineup. The doc, which was shot at night on the rooftops of Tel Aviv, shows “in detail the systems behind Israel’s calculated mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza,” according to its official synopsis.

Also last week, Nobel Prize-winning author Annie Ernaux, Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters and filmmakers including Matteo Garrone and Isabel Coixet signed an open letter urging the festival to take “concrete action in support of Palestine.” The letter was an initiative of the Venice4Palestine collective, which similarly targeted the festival last year. There was no comment from the event’s organizers.

And over the weekend, a small storm erupted after it emerged that the festival was considering scrapping its jury press conference, allegedly due to a scheduling conflict. Barbera and his team then decided to go ahead and hold the presser after online observers blasted Venice’s hesitation to cancel it as a move to shield jury members from being quizzed about politics.

Now it will be interesting to see how the jury, headed by Maggie Gyllenhaal, will navigate this thorny situation on Wednesday. The festival’s main jury also comprises Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania, whose acclaimed “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” about the killing of a five-year-old Palestinian girl in Gaza, premiered at Venice last year and won the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize. The other jurors are Daniel Blumberg, Francesco Casetti, Xavier Giannoli, Shahrbanoo Sadat and Johnnie To.

For all the political noise surrounding this year’s edition, Venice remains one of the industry’s most closely watched fall launchpads, where a strong reception can set the tone for a film’s awards campaign, international sales or wider rollout.

For the event’s organizers, though, what ultimately matters in Venice is what’s on the screen.

“The festival is an open space that is not conditioned by politics; it’s a place of dialogue and discussion between artists and creators,” Barbera recently told Variety.

The 83rd edition of Venice will run Sept. 2-12.