July 25, 2019
by Carla Hay
The 76th annual Venice International Film Festival—which takes place August 28 to September 7, 2019 in Venice, Italy—has announced its lineup. The high-profile U.S. releases competing for the festival’s biggest prize (The Golden Lion) are the outer-space drama “Ad Astra,” starring Brad Pitt; the supervillain drama “Joker,” starring Joaquin Phoenix; the romantic drama “Marriage Story,” starring Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver; and the political drama “The Laundromat,” starring Meryl Streep and Gary Oldman.
In 2018, the Venice International Film Festival signed the 5050×2020 pledge to have 50 percent of the festival’s films directed by females, by the year 2020. But the male-dominated lineup of directors for the 2019 edition of the festival shows that it has a long way to go in fulfilling that promise. Only 14 of the 64 feature-length films (or 22 percent) announced in the list below have female directors.
Even more disturbing, considering the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements, is that the Venice International Film Festival has selected director Roman Polanski’s movie “An Officer and a Spy” as one of the films competing for the festival’s grand prize. In 1977, Polanski was convicted of statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl in the Los Angeles area. He fled the United States in January 1978, to avoid his prison sentence. He has been a fugitive of the law ever since, and he is currently living in France. In 2018, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences expelled Polanski. (He won an Oscar for Best Director, for the 2002 film “The Pianist.” ) Convicted rapist Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein, who is facing criminal prosecution and numerous lawsuits for sex crimes, have also been expelled from the Academy. Polanski’s “An Officer and a Spy” stars Oscar winner Jean Dujardin (“The Artist”) as a French army office investigating the Dreyfus Affair, an anti-Semitism case in France.
The Venice International Film Festival is one of the most important festivals in the world, and it serves as a launching pad for likely Oscar contenders. In 2018, movies that had their world premieres at the festival that went on to Oscar glory included “Roma,” “The Favourite,” “A Star is Born” and “First Man.”
Some of the high-profile movies that will premiere out of competition in the 2019 edition of the festival include the music documentary “Roger Waters: Us + Them,” director Alex Gibney’s political documentary “Citizen K” and Waiting for the Barbarians,” starring Johnny Depp and Robert Pattinson. Mexican actor Gael García Bernal has two movies at the festival: “Wasp Network” (co-starring Penélope Cruz) and “Ema” (co-starring Mariana Di Girolamo).
The festival’s opening-night film is “The Truth,” starring Catherine Deneuve, Juliette Binoche and Ethan Hawke. It’s the first film from award-winning director Hirokazu Kore-eda (“Shoplifters”) to be made outside of his native Japan and with non-Japanese stars. The festival’s closing-night film is “The Burnt Orange Heresy,” an art-heist thriller starring Claes Bang, Elizabeth Debicki, Mick Jagger and Donald Sutherland.
Here is the lineup for the 2019 Venice International Film Festival:
IN COMPETITION
“A Herdade,” Tiago Guedes (Portugal, France)
“Ad Astra,” James Gray (U.S.)
“About Endlessness,” Roy Andersson (Sweden)
“An Officer and a Spy,” Roman Polanski (France)
“Babyteeth,” Shannon Murphy (Australia)
“Ema,” Pablo Larrain (Chile)
“Guest of Honor,” Atom Egoyan (Canada)
“Gloria Mundi,” Robert Guediguian (France)
“Joker,” Todd Philips (U.S.)
“La Mafia non è più quella di Una Volta,” Franco Maresco
“The Laundromat,” Steven Soderbergh (U.S.)
“Marriage Story,” Noah Baumbach (U.S.)
“Martin Eden,” Pietro Marcello (Italy, France, Germany)
“The Mayor of Rione Sanità,” Mario Martone (Italy, France)
“No. 7 Cherry Lane,” Yonfan (China)
“The Painted Bird,” Vaclav Marhoul (Czech Republic)
“The Perfect Candidate,” Haifaa Al-Mansour (Saudi Arabia, Germany)
“Saturday Fiction,” Lou Ye (China)
“The Truth,” Kore-eda Hirokazu (France, Japan) – *Opening Film*
“Waiting for the Barbarians,” Ciro Guerra (Italy)
“Wasp Network,” Olivier Assayas (France, Belgium)
OUT OF COMPETITION – Fiction
“Adults in the Room,” Costa-Gavras (France, Greece)
“The Burnt Orange Heresy,” Giuseppe Capotondi (U.K., Italy) – *Closing Film*
“The King,” David Michod (U.K., Hungary)
“Mosul,” Matthew Michael Carnahan (U.S.)
“Seberg,” Benedict Andrews (U.S.)
“Tutto il mio folle amore,” Gabriele Salvatores (Italy)
“Vivere,” Francesca Archibugi (Italy)
OUT OF COMPETITION – Non-Fiction
“45 Seconds of Laughter,” Tim Robbins (U.S.)
“Citizen K,” Alex Gibney (U.K., U.S.)
“Citizen Rosi,” Didi Gnocchi, Carolina Rosi (Italy)
“Collective,” Alexander Nanau (Romania, Luxembourg)
“I Diari di Angela – Noi Due Cineasti” Yervant Gianikian, Angela Ricci Lucchi (Italy)
“Il pianeta in mare,” Daniele Segre (Italy)
“The Kingmaker,” Lauren Greenfield (U.S.)
“Roger Waters: Us + Them,” Roger Waters (U.K.)
“State Funeral,” Sergei Loznitsa (The Netherlands, Lithuania)
“Woman,” Yann Arthus-Bertrand, Anastasia Mikova (France)
OUT OF COMPETITION – Special Screenings
“Electric Swan,” Konstantina Kotzamani (France, Greece, Argentina)
“Eyes Wide Shut,” Stanley Kubrick (U.S., U.K.)
“Irreversible – Inversion Integrale,” Gaspar Noe (France)
“Never Just a Dream: Stanley Kubrick And Eyes Wide Shut,” Matt Wells (U.K.)
“The New Pope” (Episodes 2 and 7) Paolo Sorrentino (Italy, U.S.)
“No One Left Behind,” Guillermo Arriaga (Mexico)
“ZeroZeroZero,” (Episodes 1 and 2) Stefano Sollima (Italy, France)
HORIZONS
“Atlantis,” Valentyn Vasyanovych (Ukraine)
“Bik Eneich – Un Fils,” Mehdi M. Barsaoui (Tunisia, France, Lebanon, Qatar)
“Blanco en Blanco,” Theo Court (Spain, Chile, France, Germany)
“Balloon,” Pema Tseden (China)
“The Criminal Man,” Dmitry Mamuliya (Georgia, Russia)
“Giants Being Lonely,” Grear Patterson (U.S.)
“Hava, Maryam, Ayesha,” Sahara Karimi (Afghanistan)
“Just 6.5,” Saeed Roustayi (Iran)
“Madre,” Rodrigo Sorogoyen (Spain, France)
“Mes Jours de Gloire,” Antoine De Bary (France)
“Moffie,” Oliver Hermanus (South Africa)
“Nevia,” Nunzia De Stefano (Italy)
“Pelican Blood,” Katrin Gebbe (Germany, Bulgaria)
“Revenir,” Jessica Palud (France)
“Rialto,” Peter Mackie Burns (Ireland)
“Shadow of Water,” Sasidharan Sanal Kumar (India)
“Sole,” Carlo Sironi (Italy)
“Verdict,” Raymund Ribas Gutierrez (Philippines)
“Zumiriki,” Oskar Alegria (Spain)