Ad Astra and Mar­riage Sto­ry to pre­mière at the 76^th Venice Film Festival

There were a few years at the begin­ning of the decade where it was thought that the Venice Film Fes­ti­val had lost its mojo. All the top titles were being snapped up by oth­er fes­ti­vals and it was falling between the cracks of Tel­luride and Toron­to, which both hap­pen short­ly after­wards. But then, sud­den­ly, it was all change as fes­ti­val direc­tor Alber­to Bar­bera man­aged to reframe Venice as the gold­en cor­ri­dor to the Oscars.

Sud­den­ly Hol­ly­wood got excit­ed, and the main com­pe­ti­tion line-up start­ed to become packed out with Eng­lish-lan­guage big-hit­ters. Some then, inevitably, carped that the fes­ti­val has gone too main­stream, and that takes us to today. The line up of the 2019 Bien­nale de Cin­e­ma is out now, and there’s a nice mix of award-friend­ly big hit­ters, and pos­si­bil­i­ties for new discovery.

We already know about the new film by Hirokazu Koree­da, The Truth, which is open­ing the fes­ti­val and is the director’s first non Japan­ese-lan­guage work. Haifaa Al-Man­soor, who stunned with her debut Wad­j­da, and then a lit­tle less so with her fol­low-up, Mary Shel­ley, and returns now in com­pe­ti­tion with The Per­fect Can­di­date.

Sweden’s Roy Ander­s­son returns defend­ing his 2014 Gold­en Lion (for A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflect­ing on Exis­tence) with his cheer­i­ly titled new one, About End­less­ness. Olivi­er Assayas is back in a flash with Wasp Net­work, about five Cuban polit­i­cal pris­on­ers charged by the US of espi­onage and mur­der in the late ​’90s. Ana de Armas, Pené­lope Cruz and Edgar Ramírez star.

The US con­tin­gent includes Mar­riage Sto­ry by Noah Baum­bach, is his pur­port­ed take on Scenes from a Mar­riage with Scar­lett Johans­son and Adam Dri­ver (singing Sond­heim, by all accounts). Steven Soderbergh’s The Laun­dro­mat is the director’s no-doubt idio­syn­crat­ic and involv­ing take on the Pana­ma Papers, star­ring Meryl Streep.

A super­hero movie (of sorts) makes its way to a major Euro­pean fes­ti­val in Todd Phillips’ Jok­er, with Joaquin Phoenix in the lead. Then there’s Ad Astra by James Gray, which sees sad Brad Pitt head into deep space to find his sad dad, played by Tom­my Lee Jones.

It’s always a treat to see David Thewlis giv­en a nice run-out in a lead role, and Atom Egoy­an has duly oblig­ed with Guest of Hon­our, which fol­low a food inspec­tor strug­gling to come to terms with his daughter’s impris­on­ment for sex­u­al assault. Else­where, Wait­ing for the Bar­bar­ians finds Ciro Guer­ra tack­ling JM Coetzee’s nov­el of the same name with help from Mark Rylance, John­ny Depp and Robert Pat­tin­son – we’re excit­ed to see the Colom­bian director’s Eng­lish-lan­guage debut.

The great Gong Le returns as the lead in Sat­ur­day Fic­tion by Lou Ye, and the man who just won’t stop, Roman Polan­s­ki, drops into the com­pe­ti­tion with the provoca­tive­ly titled peri­od dra­ma, J’Accuse, aka An Offi­cer and a Spy.

Out of com­pe­ti­tion, Seberg stars Kris­ten Stew­art as trag­ic mid-cen­tu­ry cin­e­ma icon Jean Seberg, while in David Michôd’s The King, Tim­o­th­ée Cha­la­met, Robert Pat­tin­son and Ben Mendel­sohn fight the French in the mid­dle ages. We’re also excit­ed to see Rial­to, Pete Mack­ie Burns’ fol­low-up to Daphne, and State Funer­al, a doc­u­men­tary about Joseph Stalin’s funer­al by Sergei Loznitsa.

Round­ing out the main com­pe­ti­tion are A Her­dade by Tia­go Guedes, Glo­ria Mun­di by Robert Guédigu­ian, Ema by Pablo Lar­raín, Sat­ur­day Fic­tion by Lou Ye, Mar­tin Eden by Pietro Mar­cel­lo, La Mafia Non É Piú Quel­la Di Une Vol­ta by Fran­co Maresco, The Paint­ed Bird by Vaclav Marhoul and Baby­teeth by first-time direc­tor Shan­non Murphy.

And if there’s noth­ing there for you, Gas­par Noé has recut Irréversible for your delectation.

The 76^th Venice Film Fes­ti­val runs 28 August to 7 Sep­tem­ber. For more info vis­it labi​en​nale​.org