‘Valeria Is Getting Married’ Trailer Debuts Ahead of Venice Premiere (EXCLUSIVE)

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Prague-based sales agent Filmotor has boarded Adela Komrzy’s and Tomas Bojar’s feature documentary “Art Talent Show,” which won two awards at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival in July.  After its premiere at Karlovy Vary, where it won the Grand Prix in the Proxima competition section and the FIPRESCI international critics’ award, the film’s North American rights were acquired by Film Movement.  Aero Films will release the film theatrically in the Czech Republic in October, and Film Expanded will release the film theatrically in Slovakia in the spring.

Emma Mackey is getting rave reviews for her work in the new movie Emily, which just premiered at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Production, finance and sales company Film Constellation has boarded sales on the upcoming romantic thriller “Haunted Heart” by Academy Award winning director Fernando Trueba (“La Belle Époque,” “The Queen of Spain”). The film stars Academy Award nominee Matt Dillon (“The House That Jack Built”), Goya-nominated Aida Folch (“The Artist and the Model”), and Juan Pablo Urrego (“Memoria”). The English-language film is set to start shooting in Greece in September. The film is set on a beautiful remote island in Greece, where young and spirited Alex joins the team of a boutique seaside restaurant as their new waitress. Despite her femme-fatale charm quickly winning the heart of the charismatic Enrico, she instead falls for the enigmatic restaurant manager Max, a reclusive American, who settled on the island decades ago.

Tessa Thompson rocked a new look at the latest premiere during the 2022 Venice Film Festival.

Blonde, Andrew Dominik’s long-awaited and anticipated Marilyn Monroe biopic starring Ana de Armas, just had its world premiere Thursday night at the Venice Film Festival, where the audience greeted it with an 11-minute standing ovation after the credits rolled.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Alexander Rodnyansky, the producer of Oscar nominated films “Leviathan” and “Loveless,” has boarded the next project from Kazakh director Adilkhan Yerzhanov (pictured), whose film “Goliath” has its world premiere at Venice Film Festival on Thursday in the Horizons Extra section. The new project, “Nosorog,” tells a contemporary story of Tamara, a distraught woman on a desperate search for her missing son in a small town consumed by violent riots. To help get her son back, she hires a shady detective, Brayuk, with unexpected consequences. Rodnyansky joins producers Aliya Mendygozhina and Olga Khlasheva on the project, which is a co-production between the State Center of Support of the National Cinema of Kazakhstan and Kazakh film company Golden Man Media.

Carson Burton Batman’s butler is coming to HBO Max. The streamer released the first trailer for Season 3 of “Pennyworth: The Origins of Batman’s Butler” on Wednesday, showcasing the newest chapter in Alfred Pennyworth’s story. The new season will premiere on Thursday, Oct. 6 with three episodes followed by one episode weekly through Nov. 24. The DC origin series Jack Bannon as the titular butler, who is also a former British SAS soldier. He forms a security company in 1960s London and goes to work with young billionaire Thomas Wayne (Ben Aldridge) and his wife Martha (Emma Paetz) before they become Bruce Wayne’s parents. Season three of the thriller begins after a five-year time jump. Now, the civil war is over and a revolution has changed the world, ushering in a new age of super heroes and supervillains.

Florian Zeller’s family drama The Son had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on Wednesday evening, eliciting a 10-minute standing ovation after the film’s screening.

Brent Lang Executive Editor Nicolas Cage and Joel Kinnaman will star in “Sympathy for the Devil,” a new psychological thriller from director Yuval Adler. Production on the film is underway in Las Vegas. Capstone Global is handling worldwide sales on the film, and will introduce it to buyers during the upcoming Toronto International Film Festival.   Written by Luke Paradise (“Lost on a Mountain in Maine”), “Sympathy for the Devil” follows “The Driver” (Kinnaman) as he finds himself in a high-stakes game of cat and mouse after being forced to drive a mysterious man known as “The Passenger” (Cage). That sets things up for a white-knuckle ride. 

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.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Reservoir Docs has acquired documentary “The Other Fellow,” which is about several men named James Bond, like the movie’s hero. It has debuted the trailer (below). The comedy-thriller premiered and won an award at Doc Edge New Zealand, and gets its European premiere in Dinard at the British Film Festival in France. In Jamaica in 1952, author Ian Fleming needs a name for his suave, sophisticated secret agent, so he steals one from an unaware birdwatcher and creates a pop-culture phenomenon about the ultimate fictional alpha-male. In 2022, the year of 007’s 60th anniversary onscreen, Australian filmmaker Matthew Bauer is on a global mission to discover the lasting, contrasting and very personal impacts of sharing such an identity with James Bond.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Prominent arthouse sales company The Match Factory has closed multiple sales on Italian auteur Gianni Amelio’s Venice competition title “Lord of the Ants” ahead of its Venice premiere on Tuesday. The Match Factory has sealed deals on Amelio’s latest work – which is a biopic of Italian poet, playwright and director Aldo Braibanti, who was jailed in 1968 due to a Fascist-era anti-gay law – that will ensure the film’s theatrical release in: Australia/New Zealand (Palace Films); Japan (Zazie Films); Spain (Surtsey Films); Sweden (TriArt Film) and Greece (Ama Films). Further deals are in negotiation, the company said. Braibanti was convicted after a complaint from his partner’s father, who later forced his son to be treated with electroconvulsive therapy in an ill-conceived attempt to rid him of his homosexuality. The Fascist-era law that punished Braibanti, which made it a crime to lead innocent or unwary people “morally” astray, was repealed in 1981.

Olivia Wilde’s-highly anticipated Don’t Worry Darling had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival this evening. Flanked by stars Harry Styles, Chris Pine, Gemma Chan — and Florence Pugh who flew in late from the Budapest set of Dune 2 — Wilde saw her film receive a spirited five-plus minute ovation.

Florence Pugh had the best red carpet date at the Don’t Worry Darling premiere – her grandmother, Pat!

The Banshees of Inisherin, Martin McDonagh’s return to the Venice Film Festival after 2017’s triumphant Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, had its world premiere Monday night, getting the biggest response from fest audience so far this year with a 15-minute standing ovation.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Berlin-based Picture Tree Intl. has added “This Place,” by Canadian debut director V.T. Nayani, to its lineup. The film is to have its world premiere at Toronto Film Festival on Sept. 9 as part of the Discovery and Next Wave Selects sections. The film stars Devery Jacobs, who was the lead actor in “Reservation Dogs” and the upcoming Marvel Studio production “Echo,” and newcomer Priya Guns. The screenplay was co-written by V.T. Nayani, Devery Jacobs and Golshan Abdmoulaie. It tells the story of two young women falling in love for the first time and being jointly challenged by their own family histories, which bear the legacies of loss, migration and displacement.

Christopher Vourlias On the eve of the 79th Venice Film Festival, where his powerful Ukraine war documentary “Freedom on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom” will premiere out of competition on Sept. 7, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Evgeny Afineevsky was in a frantic race against time. Footage was still being shot in Ukraine into the second week of August, with Afineevsky only completing the film on Aug. 31 — the same day that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the A-list celebrities and foreign press at the festival’s opening ceremony, urging the world not to forget the war in Ukraine with the impassioned plea: “Don’t turn your back to us.”

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Best Friend Forever has unveiled the trailer for “To The North,” Romanian Mihai Mincan’s feature debut which is world premiering in the Horizons section at Venice. Inspired by true events, the edgy thriller follows Joel, a religious Filipino sailor who finds a Romanian stowaway, Dumitru, hidden between some containers during his shift on a transatlantic ship. Joel decides to hide him and subsequently starts feeling tormented by his crew, friends and even God.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Venice Film Festival title “Music for Black Pigeons,” directed by Danish filmmakers Jørgen Leth, best known for “The Five Obstructions,” and “The Lost Leonardo” helmer Andreas Koefoed, has debuted its trailer with Variety. The documentary, which premieres on Tuesday in Venice’s Out of Competition section, explores the lives and processes of some of the world’s most renowned and prolific jazz musicians, including Jakob Bro, Bill Frisell, Lee Konitz, Paul Motian and Midori Takada. Leth, who has directed more than 40 films including landmark works such as “A Sunday in Hell” (1977) and the surrealist short “The Perfect Human” (1968), returns to Venice after his feature documentary “The Five Obstructions,” which he co-directed with Lars von Trier, screened on the Lido in 2003.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Variety has been given exclusive access to a first-look clip for “Amanda,” Carolina Cavalli’s quirky Italian-cool film in Venice Horizons, starring Benedetta Porcaroli (star of Netflix series “Baby”), and featuring Italian heavyweight Giovanna Mezzogiorno, and Italian “X-Factor” winner Michele Bravi. The film, which is reminiscent of early Wes Anderson, premieres at Venice on Monday, then goes to Toronto – it’s the only Italian film to play both fests this year. Charades is handling international sales. I Wonder is distributing in Italy. The film centers on Amanda, 24, who lives mostly isolated and has never had any friends, even if it’s the thing she wants the most. When she discovers that as toddlers her and Rebecca used to spend a lot of time together, Amanda chooses her new mission: to convince her that they are still best friends.