Venice Film Festival 2023: An Edition Unlike Any Before Is Throwing Up Plenty Of Talking Points
30.08.2023 - 07:01
/ deadline.com
The 80thVenice Film Festival gets underway in earnest today and the landmark edition will be unlike any other, taking place as it does against the backdrop of two Hollywood strikes.
The build-up to the festival has been dominated by talk of which stars will make it to the event and which will stay at home. It hasn’t been as challenging for organizers as the Covid editions, but it’s surely up there in recent memory.
As we revealed on Friday, the outlook for U.S. celebrity attendance is patchy, with a handful of big names set to appear and do the usual press obligations (largely due to the SAG-AFTRA interim agreements, which allow such promotion), but others have decided to stay away to avoid the accusation of strike breaking or simply “bad optics”. Expect media to be dominated by strike talk, especially on any American films.
Despite initial anxiety about movies changing course because of the strikes, it was only the festival’s opening film, Zendaya starrer Challengers, which opted out in the end. Instead, the event will open with Italian WWII drama Comandante.
Venice has become a popular awards launch pad in the last decade and this year is no different with the 80th selection offering a promising blend of U.S. Oscar hopefuls and high-end international fare.
Fest chief Alberto Barbera has put together a tantalizing group of titles both in and out of competition, with marquee directors and some potential lightning rod choices.
Highly anticipated are such competition films as the Bradley Cooper-helmed and starring Maestro, Pablo Larrain’s El Conde and David Fincher’s The Killer — all from Netflix. Also in are A24’s Priscilla from Sofia Coppola, Searchlight’s Poor Things from Yorgos Lanthimos, Neon’s Michael