Founded in 1932, the Venice Film Festival is the oldest film fest in the world and sees the biggest and brightest stars in Hollywood invade the island of Lido, Venice, Italy, to unveil their awards season hopefuls. Last year’s opening night film was the world premiere of Birdman, which went on to win the Best Picture and Best Director Oscars. And this year’s edition looks even better, with the world premieres of several high-profile Oscar contenders, including Johnny Depp’s turn as Boston crime lord Whitey Bulger in Black Mass; Eddie Redmayne’s attempt at taking home back-to-back Oscars for his performance as 1920s transsexual Lili Ebde in The Danish Girl; and much more. Here are the hottest films debuting in Venice.
Scott Free Productions
The latest from director Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart) hopefully marks a long-awaited return to greatness for its star Johnny Depp, who here transforms into the notorious—and murderous—Whitey Bulger, a South Boston mob boss and the brother of Massachusetts Senator William Bulger, played by Benedict Cumberbatch. Whitey eventually became an FBI informant, as well as one of the FBI’s Most Wanted, though the film focuses on his activity in the ‘70s and ‘80s as a leader within the Winter Hill Gang. Rounding out the film’s all-star cast: Joel Edgerton, Kevin Bacon, Dakota Johnson, Corey Stoll, Peter Sarsgaard, Sienna Miller, and Jesse Plemons.
Warner Bros.
The latest film from acclaimed indie director Tom McCarthy (The Station Agent, The Visitor) tells the story of The Boston Globe’s “Spotlight” team—known as the oldest continuously operating newspaper investigative unit in the U.S.—and how they took on high-ranking city officials and clergymen to expose the epidemic of Roman Catholic priests sexually abusing Boston-area minors. The stories led to more victims from across the world coming forward, bringing the issue onto the worldwide stage. The film stars Mark Ruffalo and Rachel McAdams as reporters, John Slattery as the deputy managing editor, Michael Keaton as the “Spotlight” team editor, and Liev Schreiber as the editor of The Boston Globe.
Open Roads Films
Will Eddie Redmayne win back-to-back Oscars? Following his gripping, Academy Award-winning turn as Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything, the charming Brit is back in a biopic set in 1920s Copenhagen about the first recipient of a sex change operation. Redmayne stars as Einar Wegener, husband to the artist Gerda Wegener (Alicia Vikander). When Gerda asks Einar to stand in for a female model in a portrait—and more portraits after that—he begins to realize that he’s meant to live life as a she, and begins living her truth as a woman named Lili Elbe. This eventually puts strain on their marriage—and complicating things further is Lili’s dashing childhood friend, Hans (Matthias Schoenaerts), who forms a love triangle with the couple. The film is directed by Oscar winner Tom Hooper, who previously helmed Les Miserables and The King’s Speech.
Focus Features
The film Beasts of No Nation is hotly anticipated for a number of reasons. It’s the first major film to be distributed by Netflix globally via their streaming service. It’s the first directorial effort from Cary Joji Fukunaga since his Golden Globe-winning turn helming True Detective’s first season. And it stars Idris Elba as a ruthless West African warlord in charge of a unit of child soldiers, including a young boy, Agu (Abraham Attah), whose father was slain by militants.
Netflix
The opening night film of this year's Venice Film Festival, this 3D action-adventure hopes to be to mountain climbing what Gravity was to outer space. Directed by Baltasar Kormakur (Contraband), the film dramatizes the 1996 Mount Everest disaster that cost the lives of several climbers. It focuses on two expeditions struggling to survive—one led by Scott Fischer (Jake Gyllenhaal), the other led by Rob Hall (Jason Clarke). Kormakur’s blockbuster also stars Josh Brolin, John Hawkes, Sam Worthington, Robin Wright, Keira Knightley, Emily Watson, and Michael Kelly as Jon Krakauer, the writer who chronicled the doomed expedition in his acclaimed book Into Thin Air.
Universal Pictures
Directed by Drake Doremus (Like Crazy), this sci-fi romantic drama is set in a futuristic utopian world without human emotions. One day, an illustrator named Silas (Nicholas Hoult) becomes a pariah when he becomes infected with a new disease and develops romantic feelings for his co-worker, Nia (Kristen Stewart), who’s also infected. The two outcasts go on the run from the authorities. The film also stars Guy Pearce and Jacki Weaver.
Icon Film Distribution
Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino and star Tilda Swinton’s last collaboration, I Am Love, was a richly-lensed, lyrical examination of Italy’s haute bourgeoisie. Their follow-up is centered on a famous couple—rock star Paul (Matthias Schoenaerts) and filmmaker Marianne (Tilda Swinton)—who are enjoying a relaxing vacation on a remote Italian island when their mood is thrown by the arrival of an old friend (Ralph Fiennes) and his fetching daughter (Dakota Johnson). A ménage à quatre ensues, with Marianne cozying up to her friend and Paul his young daughter. And with these four talented actors in the mix on an exotic island, it should be plenty of fun to take in.
Studio Canal
The latest film from the excellent Swedish filmmaker Daniel Alfredson—he of Let the Right One In and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy fame—is his first decidedly American affair, set in a logging community in the Pacific Northwest. Lillian (Julia Stiles) has just returned to her hometown, but finds herself the target of Blackway (Ray Liotta), a notorious local crime boss. With the sheriff and local community members giving her the cold shoulder, she turns to a burly ex-logger (Anthony Hopkins) to help her take on the creepy sociopath.
Directed by Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale) and Jake Paltrow (The Good Night), this documentary is a love letter to one of America’s most underappreciated filmmakers, the great Brian De Palma. From his early Hitchcockian horror films like Dressed to Kill and Blow Out to crime dramas Scarface and The Untouchables to his underrated Vietnam War drama Casualties of War to Mission: Impossible, De Palma is an American treasure to every B-movie fan, and hopefully this doc will help him gain the respect and admiration he rightfully deserves.
Courtesy Venice Film Festival
Charlie Kaufman is, of course, the genius screenwriter behind gems like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Adaptation, and Synecdoche, New York. In 2005, as part of the “Theater of the New Ear” project, Kaufman wrote the play Anomalisa—about a successful motivational speaker who, while enriching others, has lost sight of himself. When he encounters an entrancing young woman, he’s willing to give everything up to start anew. Co-directed by Kaufman and Duke Johnson, this is a 50-minute stop motion-animated version of the play, which was partially funded via $406,000 in Kickstarter donations.
Starburns Industries
Amy Berg is a former investigative journalist for CNN, so her documentary film work is imbued with a journalistic streak, exposing sexual abuse within the Roman Catholic Church (the Oscar-nominated Deliver Us from Evil), sexual abuse in Hollywood (An Open Secret), and sexual abuse within the FLDS Church (Prophet’s Prey). Here, she’s made a left turn in profiling the iconic musician Janis Joplin, the psychedelic rocker with a distinctive voice who rose to fame quickly before passing away at the age of 27 from a bad batch of heroin.
Jigsaw Productions
Not to be confused with the Rihanna song of the same name, this post-apocalyptic thriller marks the latest film from Dito Montiel, who burst onto the scene in 2006 with his coming-of-age drama A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints—which introduced the world to Channing Tatum. He’s reunited with that film’s star, Shia LaBeouf, who plays a U.S. Marine searching the wasteland for his wife (Kate Mara) and son, all with the help of his best friend (Jai Courtney). LaBeouf has turned in a string of compelling performances post-Transformers, from Lawless to Nymphomaniac to Fury to Sia’s music video for “Elastic Heart,” so it’ll be interesting to see what he serves up here.
MPower Pictures
