Venice Film Festival Sets the Stage for the International Oscar Race With ‘Bardo’ and ‘Argentina 1985’

Clayton Davis The love for Brendan Fraser continues to grow following his acclaimed turn in Darren Aronofsky’s “The Whale,” generating tons of Oscar buzz. “It’s the right actor, for the right part, at the right time,” Darren Aronofsky says in the Variety Studio presented by King’s Hawaiian at TIFF. While at the Toronto International Film Festival for the movie, Fraser, along with writer Samuel D. Hunter and his fellow cast members Sadie Sink and Ty Simpkins, spoke with Variety about taking on the difficult role of a 600-pound man, which required up to four hours of prosthetics and makeup. “It was designed specifically to obey laws of gravity and physics,” Fraser says. “It wasn’t built for just a silhouette or a one-note joke.”

Clayton Davis It’s more than prosthetics. More than the comeback. Brendan Fraser’s work as Charlie in Darren Aronofsky’s “The Whale” is a profound performance for the ages. The A-list star that brought us “The Mummy” and “Encino Man” goes above and beyond the calling of an actor, showcasing the vulnerability of a broken, 600-pound man. Like Aronofsky’s resurrection of Mickey Rourke in “The Wrestler” (2008), Frase delivers one of the best performances of the year. “The Whale” will surely land him an Oscar nomination for best actor. The drama is a stark, dour examination of regret and addiction, wrapped into the script written by Samuel D. Hunter, who adapts his play of the same name. Distributed by A24, “The Whale” tells the story of Charlie, am obese gay man who reconnects with his estranged 17-year-old daughter Ellie (played by Sadie Sink) after leaving her and her mother for his younger male lover.

Over the weekend, we saw a number of high-profile films get major premieres at the Venice Film Festival. One of the most anticipated features to debut is Alejandro G.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Francesco Zippel’s Sergio Leone doc, which premieres on Tuesday at the Venice Film Festival, is the first portrait of the Italian master made with full support of his children Raffaella and Andrea. Titled “Sergio Leone: The Man Who Invented America,” the high-profile doc is premiering in the Venice Classics section for docs on cinema. It features an impressive list of voices holding forth on what makes Leone special for them. Among these are: Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino, Giuseppe Tornatore, Frank Miller, Darren Aronofsky, Damien Chazelle and Robert De Niro (see clip). But aside from Leone’s visionary talent as a director what emerges is that as his career escalated from the so-called “Dollars Trilogy” to “Once Upon a Time in the West” through to his final masterpiece, “Once Upon a Time in America,” Leone’s life was steeped in two inextricably linked passions: film and family. 

As the 49th Annual Telluride Film Festival comes to a close on this Labor Day holiday, it once again could be a fest that ignites the Oscar chances of a number of films that have either had their World Premieres or North American Premieres this weekend. As part of the so-called Fall Festival Trifecta of Venice/Telluride/Toronto (the latter beginning this Thursday), this is where the six month+ awards season officially starts, even if the even longer Emmy season doesn’t conclude until a week from today.

Dwayne Johnson is sharing his support of Brendan Fraser, following the premiere of Brendan‘s latest movie, The Whale, during the 2022 Venice Film Festival over the weekend.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Last year Andrea Scrosati – who is group COO and continental Europe CEO of Fremantle – was at Venice with two films. This year Fremantle’s got six pics launching from the Lido, three of them in competition, which is a larger contingent than any of the U.S. studios or streamers.  Fremantle’s business model, which involves a cluster of companies mostly across Europe that they either fully own or are majority investors in, has been bearing fruit on their film side. Their output has grown “from 8 to 32 delivered movies in two years,” Scrosati says.  And the multi-pronged company’s Venice lineup – which includes Luca Guadagnino’s “Bones and All,” Emanuele Crialese’s “L’Immensità,” and Joanna Hogg’s “The Eternal Daughter” – is a reflection of that.

Martin McDonagh is back on the Lido where he’s set to debut his latest film The Banshees of Inisherin, the first film he’s produced in his home country Ireland.

Brendan Fraser’s return to Hollywood at the 79th Venice Film Festival was met with many tears.

The Whale” at the Venice Film Festival is any indication, Brendan Fraser’s return to Hollywood will be met with plenty of cheers — and even more tears. When the credits rolled on the Darren Aronofsky drama, in which Fraser plays a 600-pound gay man confined to a wheelchair, the actor was overcome with emotion.Fraser sobbed throughout the six-minute standing ovation for the film, which will likely put him at the forefront of this year’s best actor Oscars race.Among those spotted inside the Sala Grande Theatre were Pheoebe Waller-Bridge, Nick Kroll and Hillary Clinton staffer Huma Abedin, who was seated a few rows behind Fraser and shed as many tears as he did. Many others inside the theater also broke out a handkerchief during the film’s heartbreaking final scenes.

Who would have thought that, of all the top-shelf auteurs in Venice’s big comeback year, the most constrained would be Darren Aronofsky? His new competition film The Whale opens with that very intent — the screen is cropped to 1:33 — which turns out to be most appropriate for a small and intimate movie about a very big man.

By Crispian BalmerVENICE (Reuters) - U. S. actor Brendan Fraser, returning to the big screen as a leading man after a nine-year absence, said on Sunday playing the obese hero of "The Whale" was the biggest challenge of his career.

There’s no shortage of star power on the Lido this year. The 79th Venice Film Festival boasts such boldface names as Timothée Chalamet — along with his fellow the Bones And All castmates and filmmaker Luca Guadagnino — Cate Blanchett, Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Adam Driver and dozens more.

Film premiere and headlines spilling from a trio of fests in full swing (Venice), just starting (Telluride) and queued up (Toronto) have indie exhibitors and distributors the most hopeful since Covid hit that a stream of new films could fire up the arthouse market.

Timothée Chalamet has delivered yet another bold red carpet style.

To love is to want to consume someone whole, to pick their skin and sinews out of the gaps between your teeth, to swallow their pancreas and wash it all down with gulps of throat-fizzing stomach acid. Take the age-old question that dominates the Grindr lexicon: do you want to be someone, be with them, or be inside them? “Bones and All,” Luca Guadagnino’s typically sumptuous, deeply romantic American parable — about a pair of teen cannibals, coming of age against the backdrop of ‘80s Reaganism — literalizes this allure, as any great anthropophagist love story should.

EXCLUSIVE: When he comes to a film festival with his latest film, Alejandro G. Iñárritu cuts a supremely confident swath. As he premiered his film Bardo in Venice, the writer/director seemed a bit more vulnerable. This is understandable because the film is a mix of dream and reality, a deep dive into his own life tragedies, the identity conflict facing an immigrant who becomes wildly successful in their adopted country, and the inevitable need to face one’s mortality.