Tilda Swinton, Johnny Depp, Idris Elba and Eddie Redmayne will swing by Venice’s Lido island before making an appearance in Toronto: their movies, A Bigger Splash (Luca Guadagino, director), Black Mass (Scott Cooper, director), Beasts of No Nation (Cary Fukunaga, director) and The Danish Girl (Tom Hooper, director) have been picked up by both festivals.
The LINE-UP for this year’s Venice Film Festival highlights European and North American titles, with Latin America in the mix as well. The European contingent is represented by, among others, Aleksander Sokurov’s highly anticipated Francofonia, Marco Bellochio’s vampire period drama Blood of My Blood and Luca Guadagnino’s A Bigger Splash. Latin America is represented by Pablo Trapero’s The Clan and Lorenzo Vigas’ Desde Alla, with more titles selected for the festival’s sidebars.
USA and Canada have Atom Egoyan’s Remember, Charlie Kaufman’s Anomalisa, Drake Doremu’s Equalsand, Laurie Anderson’s Heart of a Dog, Scott Cooper’s Black Mass, Tom Hooper’s The Danish Girl, in addition to Timothy McCarthy’s Spotlight (which will bring its star, Michael Keaton, back to the Lido after last year’s Lion-winning Birdman) and the opening film, Baltasar Kormakur’s Everest, starring Jake Gyllenhaal. It should be noted that in 2013 and 2014 the Venice openers – Gravity and Birdman, respectively – went on to glorious careers in the awards season, both of them bringing home several Golden Globes, including Best Film-Drama.
The 72nd Venice International Film Festival runs from September 2 to 12 and, like its colleague in the Fall festival cicuit, Toronto, is an important platform to launch award-worthy pictures.
Ana Maria Bahiana