A few weeks ago I wrote about the impressive lineup of films scheduled to screen at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), one of the most important (if you’re looking to win an Oscar) annual film festivals.
This week I want to talk about one of the smaller, classy film festivals, the Venice Film Festival, which is on at the moment.
A few weeks ago I wrote about the impressive lineup of films scheduled to screen at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), one of the most important (if you’re looking to win an Oscar) annual film festivals.
This week I want to talk about one of the smaller, classy film festivals, the Venice Film Festival, which is on at the moment.
The Venice Film Festival is a mix of the Festival de Cannes and the TIFF. It’s a glamorous festival in a glorious setting and always attracts a stellar lineup of A-list actors and actresses, and by starting just one week before the TIFF it starts the Oscar hype that kicks into full swing when the TIFF launches a week later on 5th September.
The Venice Film Festival premieres around 50 films each year, compared to almost 300 at Toronto, giving it an air of exclusivity. It also means the films have a greater chance to steal the limelight – without looking like they’re campaigning.
In its 70th year, the Venice Film Festival this week has screened a number of films that have got the critics attention, and which will go on to Toronto. The films you need to keep an eye out for are:
The Sacrament
The latest film from indie genre icon Ti West (Cabin Fever 2, The House of the Devil, The Innkeepers) sends frequent collaborators AJ Bowen, Amy Seimetz, Joe Swanberg and Kentucker Audley on a harrowing journey into madness and messianic bloodshed.
Joe
Nicolas Cage stars as a hard-living ex-con who becomes friend and protector for a hard-luck kid (Tye Sheridan; The Tree of Life, Mud), in this contemporary Southern gothic tale from acclaimed filmmaker David Gordon Green (George Washington, All the Real Girls).
Tracks
Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland, The Kids Are All Right) stars in the astonishing true story of Robyn Davidson, who in 1977 set out on a solo 2,700-kilometre journey by foot across the Australian Outback.
Night Moves
Jesse Eisenberg, Dakota Fanning and Peter Saarsgard star as radical environmental activists whose act of eco-terror plunges them into a moral maelstrom, in the highly anticipated new film from acclaimed American auteur Kelly Reichardt (Wendy and Lucy, Meek’s Cutoff).
The Canyons
Lindsay Lohan stars alongside porn star James Deen and director Gus Van Sant in this erotic neo-noir thriller scripted by notorious novelist Bret Easton Ellis (American Psycho) and directed by Paul Schrader (American Gigolo).
Child of God
The latest from actor-turned-filmmaker James Franco is adapted from characteristically tough and violent Cormac McCarthy novel that draws the director’s ambitions into disturbing terrain as it explores the rituals and desperation of the Southern US’s rural poor.
Palo Alto
Based on James Franco’s first book of short stories, Francis Ford Coppola’s granddaughter Gia Coppola’s auspicious directorial debut features a knock-out cast (including the busy Franco, Emma Roberts, and Zoe Levin) and immerses us in the tangled lives of teenagers living in the eponymous Californian city.
However, the films that have really got the critics and studio marketing managers excited about are the following three films also on their way to TIFF this week to build on their ‘buzz’.
Gravity
George Clooney and Sandra Bullock star in this highly anticipated 3D space thriller from acclaimed director Alfonso Cuarón (Children of Men, Y Tu Mamá También). Gravity opened the festival and Xan Brooks of The Guardian described it as “a brilliantly tense and involving account of two stricken astronauts; a howl in the wilderness that sucks the breath from your lungs.”
Philomena
Director Stephen Frears (The Queen) teams with Judi Dench and Steve Coogan for this powerful true story of an unmarried Irish-Catholic woman who, decades after being forced by her community to give up her newborn son, embarks on a search to find him with the aid of a BBC reporter.
Indiewire’s Oliver Lyttelton called it “a lovely and deceptively complex film that marks a real return to form for its director.”
Kill Your Darlings
In this dynamic portrait of the early days of the Beat Generation, a young Allen Ginsberg (Daniel Radcliffe) and William S. Burroughs (Ben Foster) become embroiled in the notorious 1944 murder of Burroughs’ friend David Kammerer by the object of his affection, the Beat muse Lucien Carr. According to Variety’s Justin Chang “A mysterious Beat Generation footnote is fleshed out with skilled performances, darkly poetic visuals and a vivid rendering of 1940s academia in Kill Your Darlings.”
In other news, as I mentioned in my blog earlier in the week, legendary Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki’s final feature film screens this week at the Venice Film Festival. And it’s also been announced that The Wind Rises will get a November released in the United States, making it eligible for Oscar nominations 2014.
It will be interesting to see what films the next few months throw up, I’m not sure there’s much competition out there yet for the Best Animation category, Monsters University and Despicable Me 2 were fun but hardly Oscar material. Epic might be in with a chance and there’s still Turbo, Frozen and Cloudy 2 to be released yet. Any others spring to mind?
Oh, and if it’s the dresses you’re interested in, you get a great overview of the best dressed on the Venice red carpet here.