Zendaya-Starring ‘Challengers’ Set to Open Venice Film Festival

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

Toronto New Wave filmmaker Atom Egoyan has set a Toronto Film Festival world premiere for his newest feature, Seven Veils, reteaming him with Oscar nom Amanda Seyfried following their work together on the 2009 thriller Chloe.

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.

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. 

Viewers praised an "upsetting but important" documentary following Joe Swash as he explored the stories of teenagers in care. The star has been outspoken over a system he said was "setting kids up to fail".

Venice may have Luca Guadagnino’s “Challengers” with Zendaya and Josh O’Connor to open the annual soiree on the Liido, but the New York Film Festival is going to kick off with some Cannes gold. Today, the Film Society of Lincoln Center revealed that Todd Haynes’ “May December,” which premiered on la Croisette, will open the 61st edition of the New York Film Festival.

Todd Hayes’ May December will open the New York Film Festival on September 29, organizers said today.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter Todd Haynes’ soapy romantic drama “May December,” starring Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore, will open the 61st New York Film Festival. The movie is scheduled for Sept. 29 at Alice Tully Hall with the director and cast expected to attend in person. Following its NYFF premiere, “May December” will be released theatrically on Nov. 17 before landing on Netflix on Dec. 1. “May December,” which centers on a scandalous age-gap relationship, premiered in May at the Cannes Film Festival to rave reviews and sold to Netflix for $20 million. Moore and “Riverdale” star Charles Melton play Gracie and Joe, a married couple with a 20-year age gap. Their relationship sparked a national tabloid scandal because Joe was just 13 when the two fell in love. Decades later, their union is put to the test when Portman’s character Elizabeth, a popular TV actress, travels to Georgia to study the life of Gracie, whom she’ll be playing in a movie.

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.

The Venice Film Festival will start with Luca Guadagnino’s sexy sports comedy “Challengers,” featuring Zendaya as a former tennis prodigy turned coach involved in a love triangle with two professional tennis players, played by Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist.

TIFF 2023.“We are honored to showcase Ladj Ly’s remarkable talent once again with the World Premiere of his latest work, ‘Les Indésirables,’” Cameron Bailey, CEO of TIFF, said. “This deeply personal film beautifully captures the struggles and aspirations of a community, reflecting Ly’s unparalleled storytelling skills.”The film – whose title is a nod to the Victor Hugo novel – is set in the suburbs of Paris and follows a young doctor (Alexis Manenti) who is appointed to replace the mayor after the politican’s sudden death.

Well, it’s official: Variety reports that Luca Guadagnino‘s latest, his tennis love triangle film “Challengers,” will open the 80th edition of the Venice Film Festival. No surprise there, as Guada has premiered five of his seven feature films on the Lido.

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.

The Venice Film Festival will open with the world premiere of Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers.

Naman Ramachandran “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” and “Choose Irvine Welsh” are among the world premieres at the 2023 Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF), the full program for which was unveiled on Thursday. As previously announced, “Silent Roar” and “Fremont” will bookend the festival, which includes 24 feature films, five retrospective titles, five short film programs and an outdoor screening weekend with seven features. A hybrid adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s iconic novella “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” Hope Dickson Leach’s film transposes the action from London to Victorian Edinburgh. Ian Jefferies’ “Choose Irvine Welsh” is a documentary about the renowned “Trainspotting” author and features his admirers including Iggy Pop, Martin Compston, Danny Boyle, Bobbie Gillespie, Gail Porter, Rowetta and Andrew Macdonald.

Adele Lim made her directorial debut with “Joy Ride”, the new comedy feature produced by Point Grey Pictures, the production company launched by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg.

Fans of The Name of The Rose author Umberto Eco turned out in NYC, boosting the documentary on medieval scholar turned novelist and social commentator to over $9.1k on one screen – a nice showing by The Cinema Guild for a foreign language documentary on a solid weekend for some indie and arthouse fare.