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Adam Woodward

@AWLies

The Coen brothers are heading to the 2018 Venice Film Festival

Their feature-length western will screen in competition alongside new works from Luca Guadagnino, Jennifer Kent and Alfonso Cuarón.

The official line-up for the 75th 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 premiere.

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 labiennale.org

Published 25 Jul 2018

Tags: Bradley Cooper Brady Corbet Claire Foy Coen brothers Damien Chazelle Ethan Coen Jason Clarke Jennifer Kent Joel Coen Lady Gaga László Nemes Mary Harron Olivier Assayas Paul Greengrass Ryan Gosling S Craig Zahler Venice Film Festival Yorgos Lanthimos

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