Venice Film Festival: the 10 most anticipated films in our opinion, and why
The Venice Film Festival, edition number 71, returns from 27 August to 6 September with a rich and curious program, full of research films and surprises. Even from the front of the stars, the occasion appears tempting, with the possibility of seeing a swarm of stars on the red carpet: Al Pacino, Catherine Deneuve, Willem Dafoe, Ethan Hawke, Riccardo Scamarcio, Alba Rohrwacher, Michael Keaton, Edward Norton, Naomi Watts, Pierfrancesco Favino and many others.
Find out here the most interesting films and the most anticipated stars.
Here we want to present our ten most anticipated films, those that promise intriguing stories and tales even outside the plot, for the curiosity they arouse or perhaps for the scandal they seek ... Discover them all below, with the reason why we think they are the most anticipated.
See also
1. Pasolini
Announced and already much talked about, the film by Abel Ferrara, shot in Rome, tells the last days of the director and writer's life, before the murder, still not fully clarified, of November 2, 1975 at Lido di Ostia.
Expected because: Ferrara is a director with no half measures, capable of big fiascos or sublime masterpieces. Willem Dafoe is Pasolini, and in the cast, in addition to Riccardo Scamarcio, there is Ninetto Davoli, friend and actor launched by the Friulian director.
2. The fabulous young man
Mario Martone faces another difficult project, after the Risorgimento of We believed. The fabulous young man is Giacomo Leopardi, played by Elio Germano, seen from his childhood to an arduous and difficult growth, from "intolerance for the province in which he grows up to that for the whole of Italian society."
Expected because: Leopardi is a difficult, if not impossible, topic. Martone is a director who loves difficult choices, and Elio Germano is one of the best Italian actors around.
3. Birdman (or The unpredictable virtues of ignorance)
Alejandro G. Iñárritu, the director of 21 grams And Babel, comes back with a film that on paper looks different from the others shot so far. The tone, in fact, seems to be that of a dark comedy: an actor (Michael Keaton), who was once famous for playing a superhero in the cinema (Keaton himself was Batman in the "90s), tries with great difficulty to make one play on Broadway.
Expected because: for the theme that seems taken from reality, for the director, almost always up to expectations, and for the all-star cast, in addition to Keaton, there are in fact Edward Norton, Naomi Watts, Emma Stone, Zach Galifianakis, Amy Ryan and Andrea Riseborough.
4. 3 Coeurs
Benoit Jacquot's film is a sentimental drama that shouldn't disappoint expectations. Marc (Benoit Poelvoorde) meets Sylvie (Charlotte Gainsbourg) by chance, falling in love with her. A missed date will make them lose, and only after starting a relationship with Sophie (Chiara Mastroianni), Marc will discover that the two are sisters.
Expected because: even sentimental dramas have a place of honor in Venice (the film is in competition), and then there is Catherine Deneuve as the mother of the two protagonists.
5. Black souls
One of the three Italian films in competition, from which great things are expected: Black souls by Francesco Munzi tells the story of a family of the "Ndrangheta, in a tragic and archaic Calabria (it seems to be recited in the Calabrian dialect and subtitled). Dark and desperate, it could be one of the pleasant surprises of the competition.
Expected Why: Tells a topical story using elements of tragedy. Many already speak of a beautiful film.
6. Hungry hearts
Third and last Italian in competition is the film by Saverio Costanzo (In memory of me, The solitude of prime numbers), which continues to draw films from novels in this case as well. The starting novel is Indigo child, by Marco Franzoso.The story is that of a he and a she who meet in New York, giving birth to a perfect family, until something happens that brings them to the border between life and death.
Expected because: for the return of Costanzo to directing, and for the protagonists, Alba Rohrwacher and Adam Driver, very launched after the TV series Girls.
7. Good Kill
Andrew Niccol returns to direct, this time with a highly topical drama. Ethan Hawke is a pilot of drones, remotely piloted aircraft used in warfare. Every morning he goes to work, and remotely kills Taliban and Afghan civilians from a video game-like screen. Until he slowly begins to lose his mind.
Awaited Because: It sounds like a fierce criticism of America and its wars from a distance. The cast also includes January Jones (Mad Men) and the daughter of rock star Lenny Kravitz, Zoe.
8. The negotiation
Sabina Guzzanti returns with an investigative film on the State-Mafia negotiation, the alleged negotiation between the State and the Cosa Nostra started in 1992-93 after the mafia massacres that killed the judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino. Although there are trials underway, there are few Italians who really know what it is, and this film could help to understand a complex story.
Expected because: as the director herself said, the film is constructed like a detective story, and there will be no lack of humor, even though the story is disturbing. Out of competition.
9. Olive Kitteridge
Olive Kitteridge it's not exactly a movie. It is a miniseries produced by the American cable TV HBO, and as it had already happened for Mildred Pierce with Kate Winslet, is presented entirely in Venice. One of the examples of the blending of arts, and of the high quality achieved by television. Based on a cult novel by Elizabeth Strout, starring Frances McDormand and Bill Murray, and tells the events of a New England town seen through the eyes of the protagonist, a tough woman who hides a tender heart.
Expected because: to demonstrate that there are no differences in quality between cinema and TV, and for its protagonists.
10. She "s funny that way
Peter Bogdanovich finally returns to directing with a sentimental comedy: a Broadway director (Owen Wilson) pays a prostitute (Imogen Poots) to initiate her to work as an actress and falls in love with her, despite being married to the star of the work he is staging . The play's author (Will Forte) falls in love too, despite being dating her psychoanalyst (Jennifer Aniston).
Expected because: the whirlwind of relationships and feelings promises great fun, as does the presence of many comedy stars.
