Jane Cam­pi­on, Paul Schrad­er head up Venice Film Fes­ti­val 2021 line-up

With a suc­cess­ful Cannes still glim­mer­ing in our rearview mir­ror, the Venice Film Fes­ti­val is now very vis­i­ble on the hori­zon. Venice went ahead in a slight­ly scaled back ver­sion in 2021, but this year, they – as with Cannes – are draw­ing on the mega log­jam of art­house gems that have been held back in the hope of receiv­ing a glitzy pre­mière at one of the major festivals.

This year sees five women direc­tors in com­pe­ti­tion, which is a decent show­ing, even if it’s a down­turn of three since last year. And, unlike Cannes, the screen­ing rooms on the Lido will not be filled to capac­i­ty – they will be at 50 per cent as a way to com­bat the spread of Covid-19.

Already announced is the new film by Pedro Almod­ó­var, Par­al­lel Moth­ers, which will open the fes­ti­val and sees the direc­tor reunit­ing with one of his mod­ern mus­es, Pené­lope Cruz. Inter­est­ing that Almod­ó­var has cho­sen to present this film in Venice, as he’s one of Cannes’ favourite sons – maybe the fact that he’s been over­looked for the Palme too many times has led him to seek his for­tunes elsewhere.

One of the big out of com­pe­ti­tion slots is Rid­ley Scott’s The Last Duel with Ben Affleck and Adam Dri­ver, which has been in the can for a fair while now (his Guc­ci film is not going to play here, which seems sad con­sid­er­ing the sub­ject mat­ter). And there’s also Denis Villeneuve’s take on the clas­sic Frank Her­bert tome, Dune, along with David Gor­don Green’s hor­ror sequel, Hal­loween Kills. Anoth­er big­gie is Edgar Wright’s Last Night in Soho, which has been described as a hor­ror-musi­cal hybrid which offers a new take on swing­ing London.

In com­pe­ti­tion, we’re prob­a­bly most excit­ed about Paul Schrader’s The Card Counter with Oscar Isaac and Tiffany Had­dish, which is the writer/director’s fol­low-up to 2017’s First Reformed. We also have the return of Ana Lily Amir­pour with Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon, a New Orleans-set tale of a girl with strange pow­ers. Chilean film­mak­er Pablo Lar­raín is in town with Spencer, his por­trait of Princess Diana which stars Kris­ten Stew­art in the lead. On paper, it all sounds a bit strange, and brings back mem­o­ries of the dis­as­trous 2013 Diana movie with Nao­mi Watts. But if he brings us anoth­er Jack­ie, we’ll be more than happy.

Net­flix are set to debut a brace of big new titles: Jane Cam­pi­on returns with The Pow­er of the Dog star­ring Bene­dict Cum­ber­batch, while Pao­lo Sor­renti­no has made a film billed as his most per­son­al and intro­spec­tive yet, called The Hand of God. The star­ri­est cast of the fes­ti­val goes to Mag­gie Gyl­len­haal whose direc­to­r­i­al debut, The Lost Daugh­ter, screens in com­pe­ti­tion and which fea­tures Olivia Col­man, Jessie Buck­ly, Dako­ta John­son, Paul Mescal and more. France’s Stéphane Brizé returns with Anoth­er World, which con­tin­ues his recent focus on issues of labour rela­tions, L’Événement by Audrey Diwan is the first film in com­pe­ti­tion by a French-Lebanese woman and is on the sub­ject of abortion.

Venice is best expe­ri­enced as a fes­ti­val of dis­cov­ery, and part of the fun is going along to see films you know lit­tle or noth­ing about and to be sur­prised by them. Some­times you’re met with dis­ap­point­ment, but occa­sion­al­ly, you might acci­den­tal­ly stum­ble on to the next big thing. One film we’re real­ly look­ing for­ward to in the com­pe­ti­tion is Michelan­ge­lo Frammartino’s Il Buco, which is his long-ges­tat­ing fol­low-up to 2011’s incred­i­ble doc-fic­tion hybrid, Le Quat­tro Volte. And one title that plays in the Orr­i­zon­ti strand that we’re look­ing for­ward to is the sec­ond film by British direc­tor Har­ry Wootliff, called True Things. We loved her debut, Only You, so here’s hop­ing that this one takes her up to the next lev­el of cin­e­mat­ic recognition.

Here’s the full 2021 com­pe­ti­tion line-up:

The Card Counter, Paul Schrad­er
Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon, Ana Lily Amir­pour
Anoth­er World, Stéphane Brizé
The Pow­er of the Dog, Jane Cam­pi­on
Latin Amer­i­ca, Dami­ano and Fabio D’Innocenzo
L’Événement, Audrey Diwan
Offi­cial Com­pe­ti­tion, Gastón Duprat and Mar­i­ano Cohn
Spencer, Pablo Lar­raín
Il Buco, Michelan­ge­lo Fram­marti­no
Sun­down, Michel Fran­co
Lost Illu­sions, Xavier Gian­no­li
The Lost Daugh­ter, Mag­gie Gyl­len­haal
Freaks Out, Gabriele Mainet­ti
Qui Rido Io, Mario Mar­tone
On the Job: The Miss­ing 8, Erik Mat­ti
Leave No Traces, Jan Matuszyn­s­ki
Cap­tain Volkono­gov Escaped, Natasha Merkulo­va and Alek­sey Chupov
The Hand of God, Pao­lo Sor­renti­no
Reflec­tion, Valen­tyn Vasyanovych
La Caja, Loren­zo Vigas

The 78^th Venice Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val runs from 1 – 11 September.