Venice 2020 Will Be Slimmer But “Not So Different From The Usual Program,” According To Festival Director

Andreas Wiseman International EditorThe 77th Venice Film Festival (September 2 – 12) has revealed all jury members, with Competition jury president Cate Blanchett joined by Austrian director Veronika Franz (Goodnight Mommy), Brit filmmaker Joanna Hogg (The Souvenir), Italian writer Nicola Lagioia, German filmmaker Christian Petzold (Barbara), Romanian director Cristi Puiu (The Death of Mr.

Matt Dillon holds hands with girlfriend Roberta Mastromichele while attending the second day of the Filming Italy Sardegna Festival on Thursday (July 23) at Forte Village Resort in Cagliari, Italy.

Nancy Tartaglione International Box Office Editor/Senior ContributorIn a first for an Italian movie in over a decade, Daniele Luchetti’s Lacci has been set to open the Venice Film Festival’s 77th edition on September 2. The drama is based on the novel by Domenico Starnone and stars Alba Rohrwacher, Luigi Lo Cascio, Laura Morante, Silvio Orlando, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Adriano Giannini and Linda Cadri.

Manori Ravindran International EditorThe Venice Film Festival is set to open with Daniele Luchetti’s “Lacci.”The Naples-set film, which will play out of competition, stars Alba Rohrwacher, Luigi Lo Cascio, Laura Morante, Silvio Orlando, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Adriano Giannini and Linda Caridi.“Recently, we have all feared that cinema might become extinct,” said Luchetti. “Yet during the quarantine it gave us comfort, like a light gleaming in a cavern.

Tom Grater International Film ReporterVenice Days (Giornate Degli Autori), the independent Venice Film Festival sidebar that is under the new leadership of artistic director Gaia Furrer this year, has announced its line-up of titles, including a feature directed by artist Bruce LaBruce and new shorts from Atlantics filmmaker Mati Diop and Mug director Malgorzata Skumowksa.From more a thousand submissions, the programming team have whittled it down to just 28 titles.

Nancy Tartaglione International Box Office Editor/Senior ContributorThe full lineup for the 77th Venice Film Festival will be announced on July 28. In the meantime, organizers have set the roster of restored titles that will make up the Venice Classics section which, unconventionally this year, will be hosted as part of the Cinema Ritrovato Festival in Bologna, Italy from August 25-31 in a show of solidarity between the events.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentHigh-profile doc “The Rossellinis,” described as a tongue-in-cheek autobiographical look at the descendants of iconic Italian director Roberto Rossellini’s extended family, is among the standout world premieres in the lineup of the upcoming Venice Film Festival’s Critics’ Week.Directed by Roberto Rossellini’s grandson, Alessandro Rossellini, the doc is unspooling out of competition and will close the separately-run Venice section that will feature seven

Tom Grater International Film ReporterVenice Critics’ Week, the independent sidebar of the Italian festival which is pressing on with its physical edition September 2-12, has unveiled a line-up of seven debut features and two special events in its competition program.Joining the previously announced opening film The Book Of Vision are features from the U.S., Mexico and Denmark.

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau poses with his family outside the 2020 Taormina Film Festival on Sunday night (July 19) in Taormina, Italy.

Tom Grater International Film ReporterMahmoud Sabbagh, the director of Saudi Arabai’s Red Sea Film Festival, is resigning from his role after being unable to take the reins at the event’s inaugural edition after it was cancelled due to the pandemic.No reason was given for Sabbagh’s decision to step down. The festival posted a statement on its social media channels thanking the exec for his work and noting he will now return to working in the Saudi film industry as a filmmaker.

Peter Debruge Chief Film CriticCall me crazy, stubborn or reckless, but until today’s announcement that the Telluride Film Festival has been canceled, I’d optimistically kept my reservation, holding out hope that the high-altitude fall fest — which has launched such best picture Oscar winners as “The King’s Speech,” “12 Years a Slave” and “Moonlight” — might happen after all.Passes went on sale in late February for the high-altitude sprocket opera, and within hours, they’d sold out.

Luca Guadagnino is bringing his unique style to television.

Mark David Not quite as famous or grand as the drop-dead-gorgeous palazzo-lined canals of Italy’s Venice, the historic canals in Los Angeles’s Venice Beach, originally dug in 1905 by pioneering Venice Beach property developer and tobacco millionaire Abbot Kinney in order to drain marshland to make way for residential building, are picturesquely lined with charming and sometimes eye-catching homes built in a wide and fetching variety of architectural styles.

Tom Grater International Film ReporterCarlo Hintermann’s English-language drama The Book Of Vision will open the 2020 edition of Venice Critics’ Week, the independent sidebar of the Italian festival which is pressing on with plans for a physical edition in September.The film strs Charles Dance, Lotte Verbeek, Sverrir Gudnason, Isolda Dychauk and Filippo Nigro. Terrence Malick served as an executive producer on the project.

Ennio Morricone was an Oscar-winning composer of movie soundtracks whose iconic music was the backdrop to films including “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.”The Italian-born Morricone was known best by many for the soundtracks he composed for Sergio Leon’s spaghetti Westerns: “A Fistful of Dollars” (1964), “For a Few Dollars More” (1965), “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” (1966), and the director’s later films.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentTerrence Malick-produced English-language costume drama “The Book of Vision,” directed by Italy’s Carlo Hintermann, will open the Venice Film Festival’s independently-run Critics’ Week section on Sept. 2.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefDerek Tsang’s youth drama “Better Days” was awarded the top prize, a Golden Mulberry, at the Festival of Far East Film in Udine, northern Italy. The festival was largely online, and the prizes selected by an audience which both viewed the films and voted electronically.Some 25,000 votes were cast for the audience award, by 3,000 accredited pass holders in 45 countries.

Hong Kong director Derek Tsang'sBetter Dayswon the top prizes at the first—and perhaps only—virtual edition of Italy's Far East Film Festival (FEFF). Tsang's romantic crime drama, starringZhou Dongyu and Jackson Yee, took the overall audience award, the Golden Mulberry, as well as the Black Mulberry, voted on by the Shogun pass holders.

VENICE, Italy -- Catherine Deneuve plays an icon of French cinema in “The Truth.” She even chose her own middle name, Fabienne, for her character who says things like, “I’d rather have been a bad friend and a bad mother and a great actress.” But don’t go looking for some essential truths, or gossip, about Deneuve in lines like that, or in Fabienne’s eyeroll at the mention of Brigitte Bardot. The 76-year-old insists that similarities end with the name.

Justin Kroll Film ReporterAmblin Partners has closed a deal with Niki Caro to direct “Beautiful Ruins,” sources tell Variety.The story is set in an Italian seaside village in 1962, where a charming young man runs a hotel with no guests, until one day an American starlet, fresh from the set of “Cleopatra,” appears and captures his heart.