The Coen broth­ers are head­ing to the 2018 Venice Film Festival

The offi­cial line-up for the 75^th Venice Film Fes­ti­val was announced today live from the Cin­e­ma Mod­er­no in Rome. Pres­i­dent of the Bien­nale di Venezia, Pao­lo Barat­ta, and direc­tor of the Cin­e­ma depart­ment, Alber­to Bar­bera, announced an inter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tion com­pris­ing 20 new fea­tures from the likes of Mike Leigh and Luca Guadagnino.

The fes­ti­val opens on Wednes­day 29 August with a first look at Damien Chazelle’s moon land­ing dra­ma First Man, star­ring Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy and Jason Clarke, while Bradley Cooper’s Lady Gaga-front­ed direc­to­r­i­al debut, A Star is Born, heads to the Lido two days lat­er for its own world première.

In the main com­pe­ti­tion are Olivi­er Assayas’ Dou­ble Vies, Jacques Audiard’s The Sis­ters Broth­ers, Brady Corbet’s Vox Lux, Yor­gos Lan­thi­mos’ The Favourite, Jen­nifer Kent’s The Nightin­gale, Alfon­so Cuarón’s Roma, Paul Green­grass’ 22 July aka Nor­way, Mike Leigh’s Peter­loo, Flo­ri­an Henck­el von Donnersmarck’s Werk ohne Autor, Mario Martone’s Capri-Rev­o­lu­tion, Julian Schnabel’s At Eternity’s Gate, Rick Alverson’s The Moun­tain, Lás­zló Nemes’ Sun­set, Shinya Tsukamoto’s Killing, Car­los Rey­gadas’ Neustro Tiem­po and Guadagnino’s Sus­piria remake.

By far the biggest and most wel­come sur­prise is the inclu­sion of the Coen broth­ers’ The Bal­lad of Buster Scrug­gs, a fea­ture-length anthol­o­gy west­ern fol­low­ing six dif­fer­ent sto­ry­lines, which arrives on Net­flix lat­er this year. We were hop­ing to see Ter­rence Malick’s Rade­gund in com­pe­ti­tion too, but will have to set­tle for the Extend­ed Cut of The Tree of Life, the Blu-ray of which is soon to be released via the Cri­te­ri­on Col­lec­tion.

Else­where in the pro­gramme are Peter Bogdanovich’s doc­u­men­tary The Great Buster, a trib­ute to silent com­e­dy icon Buster Keaton, and Nice Girls Don’t Stay For Break­fast, Bruce Weber’s inti­mate por­trait of Robert Mitchum.

The pick of the ​‘Oriz­zon­ti’ strand is Char­lie Says from Amer­i­can Psy­cho direc­tor Mary Har­ron, a biog­ra­phy of noto­ri­ous US cult leader Charles Man­son star­ring Matt Smith, Suki Water­house and Han­nah Mur­ray. There’s also out of compe slots for Zhang Yimou, Pablo Trap­ero and S Craig Zahler, whose Dragged Across Con­crete stars Vince Vaughn and Mel Gibson.

Final­ly, the festival’s organ­is­ers have saved room for a spe­cial pre­sen­ta­tion of Orson Welles’ new­ly com­plet­ed ​‘lost’ film The Oth­er Side of the Wind, which arrives on Net­flix in Novem­ber along with Mor­gan Neville’s accom­pa­ny­ing doc­u­men­tary They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead.

The 2018 Venice Film Fes­ti­val runs 29 August to 8 Sep­tem­ber. For more info vis­it labi​en​nale​.org