Damien Chazelle’s First Man to open the 2018… | Little White Lies

Festivals

Damien Chazelle’s First Man to open the 2018 Venice Film Festival

19 Jul 2018

Words by Adam Woodward

A group of NASA astronauts, wearing blue flight suits with NASA logo, look serious and focused.
A group of NASA astronauts, wearing blue flight suits with NASA logo, look serious and focused.
The writer/​director will be hop­ing to use the fes­ti­val as a launch­pad for next year’s Oscars.

The annu­al Oscar race seems to start ear­li­er each year… Today Vari­ety dropped the news that Damien Chazelle’s new fea­ture First Man will open the 75th Venice Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val on Wednes­day 29 August.

Chazelle has been here before, of course – his pre­vi­ous film, La La Land, kicked off the festival’s 73rd edi­tion back in 2016. By using one of the world’s most pres­ti­gious film fes­ti­vals as a launch­pad, he’ll be hop­ing to make a giant leap towards next year’s Acad­e­my Awards.

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Two silhouetted figures embracing in a dimly lit room, with blue curtains in the background.

First Man sees the Whiplash writer/​director reteam with Ryan Gosling to tell the true sto­ry of NASA’s suc­cess­ful attempt to put a man on the moon. Gosling stars as Neil Arm­strong, and the film is being pitched as a per­son­al, first-hand account of the jour­ney he and his Apol­lo 11 crew embarked on between 1961 and 1969.

Claire Foy plays Armstrong’s wife, Janet Shearon, while Kyle Chan­dler, Jason Clarke, Corey Stoll, Cia­ran Hinds and Christo­pher Abbott also co-star. First Man is set for release on 12 October.

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