Cinema

Great cinema in Venice: here is the poster for the 2024 Venice Film Festival

The film titles of the 81st edition of the festival, scheduled from 28 August to 7 September, have been unveiled. Five Italian feature films in competition

23 July 2024

3' min read

The curtain is lifted on the programme of the Venice Film Festival 2024: the packed programme for the 81st edition of the world's oldest film festival has been unveiled.

Scheduled from 28 August to 7 September, this year's Venice Film Festival will be opened - as previously announced - by Tim Burton's 'Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice': entered out of competition, this sequel to the 1988 cult film has a very rich cast, consisting of names of the calibre of Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Jenna Ortega, Justin Theroux, Willem Dafoe and Monica Bellucci.

Venezia: ecco il cartellone della Mostra 2024
Photogallery7 foto

The Italians

Within the main competition there will be ample space for Italian cinema, with no less than five Italian titles to be presented: 'Battlefield' by Gianni Amelio, 'Vermiglio' by Maura Delpero, 'Iddu' by Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza, 'Queer' by Luca Guadagnino and 'Diva futura' by Giulia Steigerwalt.

There is no shortage of big international names in the running for the Golden Lion, starting with Pedro Almodóvar with 'The Room Next Door' (an English-language debut for the Spanish director with Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton in the cast) and Pablo Larraín with 'Maria' (a film about Maria Callas starring Angelina Jolie).

There is also great curiosity for Brady Corbet's 'The Brutalist', Justin Kurzel's 'The Order', Wang Bing's 'Youth (Homecoming)', Athina Rachel Tsangari's 'Harvest', Dea Kulumbegashvili's 'April', Luis Ortega's 'Kill the Jockey' and Walter Salles' 'I'm Still Here'. High expectations also for Todd Phillips' "Joker: Folie à deux", starring Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga, a sequel to the film that won the Golden Lion in 2019.

Out of competition

The parterre of important titles out of competition is impressive, in which we find "Wolfs" by Jon Watts (starring Brad Pitt and George Clooney), "Phantosmia" by Lav Diaz, "Maldoror" by Fabrice Du Welz, "Broken Rage" by Takeshi Kitano, "Baby Invasion" by Harmony Korine, "Cloud" by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, "Finalement" by Claude Lelouch, "Il tempo che ci vuole" by Francesca Comencini and "L'orto americano" by Pupi Avati, included as the closing film.

In the non-fiction group, we expect a lot from Massimo D'Anolfi and Martina Parenti's 'Bestiari, Erbari, Lapidari', Amos Gitai's 'Why War', Errol Morris' 'Separated' and Asif Kapadia's '2073'.

There will be no shortage of TV series, with the presentation of four highly anticipated titles such as Alfonso Cuarón's 'Disclaimer', Rodrigo Sorogoyen's 'The New Years', Thomas Vinterberg's 'Families Like Ours' and Joe Wright's 'M - The Child of the Century', based on the novel by Antonio Scurati.

Special screenings out of competition include "Leopardi. Il poeta dell'infinito", a miniseries directed by Sergio Rubini. For the ceremony of the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement to Peter Weir, "Master and Commander", a 2003 film, one of the most famous in the Australian director's filmography, will be screened.

The other sections

The Orizzonti section will be opened by 'Nonostante', the second directing effort by Valerio Mastandrea, who also plays the protagonist: alongside him in the cast will be Dolores Fonzi, Barbara Ronchi and Laura Morante.

In competition at Orizzonti, Alexandros Avranas' "A Quiet Life" and Francesco Costabile's "Familia" are worth mentioning, as well as the debut "Mon inséparable" by Anne-Sophie Bailly, especially since the protagonist is the very talented Laure Calamy. The section also includes "Wishing on a Star", an Italian film by Slovakian director Peter Kerekes.

Within Horizons Extra, however, is the new work by Paola Randi, entitled 'The Story of Frank and Nina'.

It is worth mentioning that within Venezia Classici, this year there will be an important space dedicated to documentaries on cinema: among these we will find works dedicated to fundamental authors such as Hayao Miyazaki, Sergej Paradzanov and Carlo Mazzacurati, but also to great performers such as Jean-Pierre Léaud and Gian Maria Volonté.

Venice Film Festival 2024, 28 August - 7 September