‘Athena’ Enrapts Crowd At World Premiere – Venice

When it comes to biopics, they don’t get much more intensely intimate than Andrew Dominik‘s “Blonde.” And the film’s world premiere at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month confirmed that Ana de Armas expertly channels Marilyn Monroe in her performance. In fact, de Armas got so close to Monroe during the film’s production the actress attempted to contact the deceased starlet, in a way.

Pat Saperstein Deputy Editor Super, the boutique distribution label from Neon, has acquired U.S. rights to Alice Diop’s “Saint Omer” after it won the Silver Lion Grand Jury prize in Venice along with the Luigi De Laurentiis Lion of the Future award. “Saint Omer” was recently shortlisted for France’s submission to the Academy Awards and will premiere at the New York Film Festival and play the BFI London Festival. Neon plans a theatrical release. “Saint Omer” is Diop’s debut fiction feature, which she co-wrote with Amrita David and Marie NDiaye, and it stars Kayije Kagame, Guslagie Malanda, Valérie Dréville and Aurélia Petit. Toufik Ayadi and Christophe Barral of Srab Films produced alongside Arte France Cinéma and Pictanovo Hauts-de-France.

Neon’s boutique label Super has secured U.S. rights to Alice Diop’s acclaimed drama Saint Omer, following its world premiere earlier this month at the Venice Film Festival, where the film won the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize, as well as the Luigi De Laurentiis Lion of the Future Award for Best Debut Feature.

Valentina Zenere joined the cast of Netflix’s hit show Elite this year and now she’s at the Venice Film Festival!

Nicolas Winding Refn says that the characters in his upcoming Netflix series Copenhagen Cowboy, are a “female evolution” of characters from previous projects such as Valhalla Rising, Drive and Only God Forgives.

“Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” is set to have its world premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival on Saturday.

Tilda Swinton is gracing the red carpet at the 2022 Venice Film Festival!

Cannes Film Festival. Yet, the Venice Film festival pre-dated its French film counterpart, with its inaugural festival taking place at the Excelsior hotel in Venice, Italy, in the year 1932.

The harrowing new trailer for “All Quiet on the Western Front” has been released ahead of the movie’s premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Berlin-based sales outfit M-Appeal has closed distribution deals for Italy and Greece following the film’s world premiere at the Venice Film Festival. The Israeli-Ukrainian co-production plays in Venice’s Horizons Extra section, and will have its North American premiere on Sept. 14 at Toronto Film Festival in the Contemporary World Cinema section. Rome-based P.F.A Films Srl will distribute the film in Italy, with a theatrical release planned for April 2023. The company’s recent titles include “Fabian – Going to the Dogs” by Dominik Graf, “The Audition” by Ina Weisse, and “Border” by Abbasi Ali.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Best-known for her role as Noemie in the hit French series “Call My Agent!,” Laure Calamy has emerged in recent years as one of France’s biggest stars and most versatile actors. After a busy career in theater and many notable supporting roles, she finally got a shot at leading roles, and kudos have followed, for Caroline Vignal’s romantic comedy “My Donkey, My Lover and I,” which was part of Cannes’ Official Selection and earned her a Cesar award, and Eric Gravel’s social drama “A Plein Temps,” for which she won best actress at Venice in the Horizons section. Calamy is now on a roll and she’s shown that she can play anything. Case in point: Over this summer, she was at Locarno to present Blandine Lenoir’s period drama “Angry Annie,” in which she plays a working mother who joins the Movement for the Liberation of Abortion and Contraception (the film won Variety‘s Piazza Grande Award), and she’s now at Venice with Sebastien Marnier’s psychological thriller “The Origin of Evil,” in which she flirts with genre. In-between Locarno and Venice, she also made a stop at Angouleme Film Festival, where she presented “Angry Annie” and Marc Fitoussi’s “Two Tickets to Greece.”

French director Rebecca Zlotowski makes her Venice Film Festival competition debut on Sunday with drama Other People’s Children, casting the often neglected, sometimes maligned figure of the stepmother in a fresh light.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Cairo-based film marketing and distribution outfit MAD Solutions has acquired rights for Arab territories to Venice competition entry “Les Miens” (“Our Ties”), directed by French actor and filmmaker of Moroccan descent Roschdy Zem. “Our Ties” is co-written by Zem with actor/director Maïwenn (“Polisse,” “Mon Roi”), who co-stars. Zem is a French cinema fixture, having starred in pics including “Other People’s Children” and directed several films including 2019’s “Persona Non Grata.” “Ties” is a drama about family dynamics centered around a man played by Sami Bouajila whose personality changes radically after he suffers a head injury. Zem plays his TV presenter brother.

Cannes Film Festival. Yet, the Venice Film festival pre-dated its French film counterpart, with its inaugural festival taking place at the Excelsior hotel in Venice, Italy, in the year 1932.

Maureen Kearney’s story is unbelievable. It is a story of unbelief, in fact — of denial, cover-ups, corruption and injustice directed at a small woman who was just doing her job. She’s played with an electric stillness by the great Isabelle Huppert in Jean-Paul Salome’s Venice Film Festival Horizons title The Sitting Duck (La Syndicaliste). There are still plenty of people who openly doubt her story, including people on her own side of politics. Perhaps it would be easier all round if it weren’t true.

Alpha Violet founding co-heads Virginie Devesa and Keiko Funato are in Venice this year with Indonesian filmmaker Makbul Mubarak’s first film Autobiography, which plays in Horizons ahead of trips to TIFF and London BFI  among other festivals.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent “Walls Can Talk,” the latest film by Spain Carlos Saura, director of “Raise Ravens,” “Deprisa, Deprisa” and “Carmen,” has been acquired for intentional sales by Madrid-based Latido.   Produced by María del Puy Alvarado at Malvalanda (“Madre,” “The Mole Agent”) and distributed in Spain by José Maria nd Miguel Morales’ Wanda Vision, “Walls Can Talk” will world premiere at the San Sebastian Film Festival as an RTVE Gala.  The doc feature sees Saura conduct his own inquest into the origins of art, directing and for once starring in a film. In it, he visits masterpieces of paleolithic art– in Spain’s Altamira and El Castillo caves, for instance – and asks modern (Miquel Barceló) and graffiti artists and urban creators (Suso 33, Zeta, Musa71) about what drives them to paint. 

The stars are giving us major fashion moments at the 2022 Venice Film Festival!

Bardo” be Alejandro González Iñárritu’s third best director Oscar in a row following “Birdman” and “The Revenant” wins? It’s a question many were asking heading into the Venice Film Festival, where the Netflix-backed “Bardo” world premiered in competition. The three-hour-long drama, which wrapped at 12:15 a.m. Venice time, earned a standing ovation of just over four minutes at the Sala Grande. A number of audience members began leaving before the movie ended given the late hour, but the vast majority stayed to applaud the helmer.Iñárritu was visibly moved by the reception to his film, certainly one of his most personal efforts to date, and had tears in his eyes as he embraced his cast and producers.