Some of Hollywood's biggest stars are heading to Italy for the 83rd Venice Film Festival, starting Wednesday
VENICE, Italy — Some of Hollywood’s biggest stars are heading to Venice, Italy, for the 83rd edition of the Venice Film Festival, which kicks off on Wednesday.
Here’s a rundown of everything you need to know about the festival, the Oscar buzz and who’s going.
It’s one of the most prestigious film festivals in the world, second only to Cannes, and technically the oldest. Venice is also a reliably starry affair, gathering some of the best films in international cinema, and it often factors into the Oscars race.
The film festival was established in 1932, then a non-competitive event, by the La Biennale di Venezia, hosting films like “Grand Hotel” and “It Happened One Night.” By 1935, it decided to make it an annual event. Suspicions that the festival was succumbing to fascist influences actually led to the establishment of the Cannes Film Festival as an alternative after the 1938 edition.
The Golden Lion award as we know it today wouldn’t be introduced until 1949. “Rashômon” won in 1951, and other winners throughout history include “Belle de jour” in 1967, “Au revoir les enfants” in 1987, “Brokeback Mountain” in 2005, “Somewhere” in 2010, “Poor Things” in 2023 and, last year, “Father Mother Sister Brother.”
The festival kicks off on Wednesday and runs through Sept. 12, when the awards will be announced. The opening night film is Danny Boyle’s “Ink,” an adaptation of the acclaimed stage play about the early years of Rupert Murdoch — played by Guy Pearce — and his acquisition of the daily newspaper The Sun. Jack O’Connell and Claire Foy also star.
George Clooney is back to being a near-annual fixture. This time he’ll be at the festival to pick up a lifetime achievement award. He’s also a producer on “Furies.” Other stars expected include Noel and Liam Gallagher of Oasis, Rooney and Kate Mara, Robert Pattinson, Penélope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Pamela Anderson, Sam Rockwell, John Malkovich, Louis Garrel, Cho Yeo-jeong and Ellen Burstyn, who is also getting a lifetime achievement award.
As far as awards are concerned, perhaps the most anticipated is Martin McDonagh’s dark comedy “Wild Horse Nine,” starring Rockwell and Malkovich as a pair of CIA agents before the 1973 Chilean coup. McDonagh’s previous films “The Banshees of Inisherin” and “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” premiered at Venice and went on to receive best picture nominations. There is also excitement about Pattinson playing “To Catch a Predator” host Chris Hansen in “Primetime,” Cruz and Bardem co-starring in Florian Zeller’s psychological drama “Bunker,” the Mara sisters playing twins in Werner Herzog’s “Bucking Fastard” and Lee Chang-dong’s first film in eight years, “Possible Love.”
In the documentary category, Alex Gibney is bringing “Musk,” his nearly four-hour investigation into the world’s richest man, and Julia Loktev continues her sprawling portrait of independent Russian journalists in “My Undesirable Friends: Part II — Exile.” “Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger” also follows the Gallagher brothers during their 2025 reunion tour.
Ilya Khrzhanovsky’s film “DAU,” inspired by the lives of the Soviet physicists working on the atomic bomb, has been at the center of some heated discourse. Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Culture and the Embassy of Ukraine in Italy questioned its inclusion in the festival, where it’s playing in competition, calling it a “project linked to the Russian state and its networks of influence.”
Festival director Alberto Barbera defended its selection, writing in a statement that it “is not a Russian film. It is not pro-Putin propaganda. It is a film that denounces totalitarian regimes and their intrusion into citizens’ lives to restrict their freedom.”
Khrzhanovsky also wrote a lengthy rebuttal on Facebook, writing that the movie “should not be prematurely judged on the basis of false associations, distorted chronology, or assumptions that contradict the documented history of the project. I have been and remain opposed to Russia’s war against Ukraine and to the political system that made this war possible."
Earlier this year, geopolitical tensions spilled over into the Venice Biennale contemporary art exhibition after the jury quit in protest over the participation of Russia and Israel.
The group Venice4Palestine, which last year hosted a large scale protest during the festival, asked that it “suspend all agreements with entities and institutions linked to the Israeli government,” although it did not specify any films. It also asked that the Palestinian flag be flown “throughout the festival." There are two Palestinian films in the official selection: “Al Mowaten Osama” by Ahmed Hassouna and “Hiwar ma’ albahr” by Muayad Alayan.
