Ladj Ly’s ‘Les Indésirables’ Set to Debut at Toronto International Film Festival

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Venice Film Festival artistic director Alberto Barbera is in a good mood after Tuesday’s lineup announcement managed to stave off the impact of the SAG-AFTRA strike, something which could have been “devastating” to the event, he says. In the end, the only U.S. film that skipped the Lido is Luca Guadagnino’s Zendaya-starrer “Challengers,” which Barbera says was against Guadagnino’s wishes.

Diljit Dosanjh and Arjun Rampal film, which is now titled “Punjab ’95,” will have its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The Toronto International Film Festival is back for another big year.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor “Family Portrait,” written and directed by Lucy Kerr, has debuted its trailer ahead of its world premiere in Locarno Film Festival’s Cineasti Del Presente section. World sales are being handled by Flavio Armone at Lights On. “Family Portrait” follows a sprawling family on a morning when they have planned a group picture. After the mother disappears and one of the daughters becomes increasingly anxious to find her and take the picture, the rest of the family appears to resist any attempt to gather. “Initially presenting itself as a realistic portrayal of a family on an idle but hectic summer day, the film progressively descends into a realm where time and space lose their grip, transforming the family portrait into a solemn and enigmatic ritual of transition,” according to a press statement.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Spanish director J.A. Bayona’s “Society of the Snow,” a reconstruction of a 1972 plane crash in the Andes that forced survivors to take extreme measures, including cannibalism, has been set as the Venice Film Festival’s closing film. The deeply immersive Spanish-language saga is a Netflix original film shot in Andalusia’s Sierra Nevada, mainland Spain’s highest mountain range, using a 300-person crew. “Society of the Snow” will world premiere on the Lido out-of-competition on Sept. 9th. Its official screening will be held in the Palazzo del Cinema after the awards ceremony. In 1972 Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, which had been chartered to bring Montevideo’s Old Christians Rugby Club team to Chile, crashed at an altitude of 11,712 feet in the Andes.  Of its 45 passengers – which consisted mostly of the rugby team, friends and family – 29 survived. Without food, the survivors, who belonged to Uruguay’s elite, were forced to eat the flesh of the deceased to stay alive. 19 survived an avalanche. 72 days after the crash, 16 finally made it out alive. 

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor The 80th Venice Film Festival has revealed its selection of projects for Venice Immersive, the XR-Extended Reality section of the festival, which runs Aug. 30 – Sept. 9. The program will include VR experience “Wallace & Gromit in the Grand Getaway” and a Fatboy Slim project. Venice Immersive is devoted to immersive media and includes all XR means of creative expression: 360° videos and XR works of any length, including installations and virtual worlds. The program, which will take place on the island of Lazzaretto Vecchio, will present 44 projects from 25 countries, and 24 works in the Worlds Gallery section. It will comprise:

Film at Lincoln Center has teed up Sofia Coppola’s Priscillaas the Centerpiece selection for the 61st New York Film Festival.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter Sofia Coppola’s “Priscilla” has been tapped as the Centerpiece selection for the 61st New York Film Festival. The biographical drama about the wife of Elvis Presley will make its North American premiere at Alice Tully Hall on Oct. 6. “Priscilla” centers on the life of Priscilla Ann Wagner (“Mare of Easttown” actor Cailee Spaeny) and her life and love affair with the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll (“Euphoria” breakout Jacob Elordi). It’s based on the 1985 memoir “Elvis and Me” by Priscilla Presley and Sandra Harmon and follows her early years as a teenage army brat stationed in West Germany to her arrival at Graceland, which became her home and prison.

Atom Egoyan will be returning to the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) to premiere his latest movie, “Seven Veils”.

Atom Egoyan’s “Seven Veils” will have its world premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival, TIFF organizers announced on Wednesday. The Canadian filmmaker of “Exotica,” “The Sweet Hereafter” and “Chloe” will present his film at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts in a special Sept. 8 “Avant-premiere” screening held in partnership with the Canadian Opera Company.“Seven Veils” stars Amanda Seyfried and was inspired by Egoyan’s recent experience with a revival of his 1996 version of the opera “Salome,” which he directed for the first time in 1996 for the Canadian Opera Company.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent The Venice Film Festival will pay tribute to late Italian icon Gina Lollobrigida, who died in January, with a pre-opening event featuring a double bill of freshly restored works in which she stars. The Lido’s annual pre-opening event on Aug. 29 will feature a 27-minute short by Orson Welles titled “Portrait of Gina.” In 1968, Welles interviewed Lollobrigida in her villa on the Appian Way as the pilot for an ABC TV series — a U.S. version of “Around the World With Orson Welles”– that ABC rejected. Welles’ portrait of the diva remained in the vaults until 1986, when it was screened at the Venice Film Festival one year after Orson Welles’ death. This piece has been defined by Welles as a “personal essay” on Lollobrigida. Interestingly, when Lollobrigida saw “Portrait of Gina” in Venice in 1986, she reportedly tried to have it banned. The short’s restoration was done by the Munich Film Museum and Italy’s Cinecittà.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Seven films have been selected for the 11th edition of Final Cut in Venice, the works-in-progress section of the 80th Venice Film Festival. Final Cut in Venice, which runs Sept. 3-5, provides support for the completion of films from Africa and five Middle Eastern countries: Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Syria. It is one of the programs run by the festival’s industry section, Venice Production Bridge. Over three days, the working copies of the selected films will be presented to producers, buyers, distributors, post-production companies and film festival programmers. The first two days are devoted to screenings, and then one-to-one meetings between the producers of the projects and the professionals attending the Venice Production Bridge will take place on the third day. The program will conclude with the awarding of prizes in kind or in cash, the purpose of which is to provide support for the films’ post-production.

Helen Mirren dedicated a Jerusalem Film Festival life-time achievement award to actors around the world on Thursday, just an hour before a looming SAG-AFTRA strike was made official.

The Venice Film Festival has unveiled the names who will join Damien Chazelle on the main Competition jury of its 80th edition, running Aug 30 — Sep 9.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Jane Campion, Laura Poitras, Mia Hansen-Løve and Martin McDonagh are among high-caliber members of the Venice Film Festival’s main jury. The prominent directors, most of whom are Venice regulars – Poitras last year scored the Golden Lion with documentary “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” – will be joined on the Venice jury panel by Palestinian actor Saleh Bakri (“Wajib”); Chinese star Shu Qi (“The Assassin”); Italian director Gabriele Mainetti, who was at Venice last year with “Freaks Out”; and Argentinian auteur Santiago Mitre whose “Argentina, 1985” also launched from the Lido last year. They will join Damien Chazelle who – as previously announced – will serve as president of the Venice competition jury. 

EXCLUSIVE: Amid all the strike news and Emmy noms on the horizon, here’s something wild we heard recently and that’s that the Sundance Film Festival has been fielding bids from a handful of cities to relocate the festival from its Park City, UT home base.

Will Tizard Contributor Bulgarian crime story “Blaga’s Lessons” by Stephan Komandarev scored the top prize and $25,000 at the 57th Karlovy Vary Film Festival on Saturday, capping a week of celebrating art film, stars and bold global work. With sold out screenings ranging from Russell Crowe introducing “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World” to rare Japanese masterworks by Yasuzo Masumura and a tribute to actor Daniela Kolarova, Czech audiences proved once again to be hungry for every kind of film they cannot experience at any other venue. The Crystal Globe competition special jury prize, along with $15,000, went to “Empty Nets,” a German-Iranian gritty love story directed by Behrooz Karamizade.

After delivering a blisteringly saucy trailer, Luca Guadagnino’s latest film “Challengers” will set the Venice Film Festival ablaze as their opening night film, screening out of competition, TheWrap has confirmed. The film follows Zendaya as Tashi Duncan, a successful tennis champ drawn to two men, played by Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent For his third edition at the helm, Locarno Film Festival artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro has assembled a wide spectrum of films that “do not resemble each other in terms of tone or form” while reflecting “the world in all its expressions and manifestations,” he tells Variety. This boundless range is best exemplified by the fact that starkly surrealist Filipino arthouse star Lav Díaz’s latest work, “Essential Truths of the Lake,” will be vying for the fest’s Golden Leopard alongside fare that, at least on paper, appears much lighter. This includes U.S. director Bob Byington’s indie comedy “Lousy Carter” and Estonian helmer Rainer Sarnet’s “The Invisible Flight,” which Nazzaro says  “mixes Kung Fu, hard rock and the Orthodox Church.”

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Luca Guadagnino’s sexy sports comedy “Challengers,” starring Zendaya as a former tennis prodigy turned coach entangled in a love triangle with two pro tennis players, played by Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist, will open the Venice Film Festival. “Challengers” will world premiere out of competition on Aug. 30 in the Venice Lido’s Palazzo del Cinema, providing a star-studded kickoff for the fest’s 80th edition. The hotly anticipated film – which marks Guadagnino’s first full-fledged U.S. studio movie – will be distributed in the U.S. by Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures/Amazon Studios, and internationally through Warner Bros Pictures.