Hollywood glamour returns to Venice Film Festival

Festival opens with Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.

The 2024 Venice International Film Festival, celebrating its 81st edition, will take place on the Lido in the Italian canal city from August 28 to September 7.

This year’s film gala will mark a return of Hollywood glamour after film union strikes last year prevented celebrities from attending the world’s oldest film festival.

Guests set to walk the red carpet during the ten-day festival, which will once again be hosted by Alberto Barbera, include George Clooney, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Nicole Kidman, Joaquin Phoenix, Daniel Craig, Cate Blanchett and Lady Gaga.

A jury led by French actress Isabelle Huppert will judge the 21 films competing for the main prize of the Golden Lion.

Some of the most anticipated films in the competition include: The room next door by Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar, starring Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore, which tells the story of the rift between a mother, a war correspondent, and her daughter.

Other notable competitors in the competition include Todd Phillips’ Joker: Foil for Two starring Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga; and the erotic thriller by Dutch director Halina Reijn Baby girlstarring Nicole Kidman and Antonio Banderas.

There are also five Italian films in the running, including Maura Delpero’s Vermiglio, the mountain brideset in a village in the Dolomites at the end of World War II; Gianni Amelio’s Battlefieldabout the Spanish flu epidemic in 1918-1919; Sicilian letters by Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza, about a fugitive mafia boss; Luca Guadagnino’s Foreignbased on William Burroughs and starring Daniel Craig; and Diva Future by Giulia Louise Steigerwalt about the Italian pornographer Riccardo Schicchi.

Key topics of discussion in the non-competition section include: Beetlejuice BeetlejuiceTim Burton’s sequel to his 1988 cult classic, which opens the prestigious film festival on Wednesday, and Wolves starring Brad Pitt and George Clooney, about two professional fixers who prefer to work alone, but are forced to work together.

The festival’s pre-opening film on Tuesday is The Oro of Naples (1954), directed by Vittorio De Sica and starring Sofia Loren, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the death of the great film director.

For full details of the festival, which will conclude with Pupi Avati’s The American Backyardsee the website of La Biennale di Venezia.