Venice Film Festival 2017 Preview

Venice 2017

Venice Film Festival

30 August – 09 September 2017

Venice, Italy

Venice website

Billed as the world’s oldest film festival, the prestigious Venice film festival has announced a star-studded line up which sets the tone for this year’s awards season. Venie has seen some proud premieres in recent years as a hotspot for launching awards contenders, including La La Land, Spotlight and Birdman, and this year is shaping up to be no different.

Opening the festival on 30 August is Alexander Payne‘s sci-fi satire Downsizing. The film stars Matt Damon, Kristen Wiig, Laura Dern, Christoph Waltz and Jason Sudekis, and follows a man who decides to shrink himself to better deal with life. Damon also appears in George Clooney‘s Coen Brothers-scripted crime comedy Suburbicon, which also screens as part of this year’s Official Competition.

Other world premieres include Guillermo Del Toro‘s The Shape of Water, a strange love story between a sea creature and a lonely government clerk, Darren Aronofsky‘s highly anticipated mother!, and Martin McDonough‘s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, which sees Frances McDormand going against a small town’s police chief after her daughter is murdered.

Genre fans should also look out for the premieres of the follow up from Bone Tomahawk director S. Craig Zahler, Brawl in Cell Block 99, starring Vince Vaughn, and A24’s latest horror venture, Woodshock, with Kirsten Dunst in the lead.

The festival will also feature a special section dedicated solely to virtual reality, including a reworked 3D version of Michael Jackson’s Thriller directed by John Landis.

Pamela Jahn

Check out the full line up below

VENICE 74 COMPETITION
Downsizing, Alexander Payne
Human Flow, Al Weiwei
mother!, Darren Aronofsky
Suburbicon, George Clooney
The Shape of Water, Guillermo del Toro
L’insulte, Ziad Doueiri
La Villa, Robert Guediguian
Lean on Pete, Andrew Haigh
Mektoub, My Love: Canto Uno, Abdellatif Kechiche
Sandome No Satsujin (The Third Murder), Hirokazu Koreeda
Custody (Jusqu’a La Garde), Xavier Legrand
Ammore e Malavita, Manetti Bros
Foxtrot, Samuel Maoz
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Martin McDonagh
Hannah, Andrea Pallaoro
Jia Nian Hua (Angels Wear White), Vivian Qu
Una Famiglia, Sebastiano Rosa
First Reformed, Paul Schrader
Sweet Country, Warwick Thornton
The Leisure Seeker, Paolo Virzi
Ex Libris – New York Public Library, Frederick Wiseman

OUT OF COMPETITION (FICTION)
Our Souls At Night, Ritesh Batra
Victoria And Abdul, Stephen Frears
La Melodie, Rachid Hami
Outrage Coda, Takeshi Kitano (closing film)
Loving Pablo, Fernando León de Aranoa
Il Signor Rotpeter, Antonietta de Lillo
Diva!, Francesco Patierno
Racer and The Jailbird, Michaël R. Roskam
Zama, Lucrecia Martel
Wormwood, Errol Morris
The Private Life of A Modern Woman, James Toback
Brawl In Cell Block 99, S. Craig Zahler
Il Colore Nascosto Delle Cose, Silvio Soldini

OUT OF COMPETITION (NON-FICTION)
Cuba and the Cameraman, Jon Alpert
My Generation, David Batty
The Devil and Father Amorth, William Friedkin
Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda, Stephen Nomura Schible
Piazza Vittorio, Abel Ferrara
This Is Congo, Daniel McCabe
Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond: The Story of Jim Carrey, Andy Kaufman and Tony Clifton, Chris Smith
Happy Winter, Giovanni Totaro

SPECIAL EVENTS
Casa d’Altri, Gianni Amelio
Michael Jackson’s Thriller 3D, John Landis
Making Of Michael Jackson’s Thriller, Jerry Kramer

ORIZZONTI
Disappearance, Ali Asgari
Especes Menacees, Gilles Bourdos
The Rape of Recy Taylor, Nancy Buirski
Caniba, Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Verena Paravel
Les Bienheureux, Sofia Djama
Marvin, Anne Fontaine
Invisible, Pablo Giorgelli
Brutti e Cattivi, Cosimo Gomez
The Cousin, Tzahi Grad
The Testament, Amichai Greenberg
No Date, No Signature, Vahid Jalilvand
Los Versos Del Olvido, Alireza Khatami
The Night I Swam, Damien Manivel, Igarashi Kohei
Nico, 1988, Susanna Nicchiarelli
Krieg, Rick Ostermann
West Of Sunshine, Jason Raftopoulos
Gatta Cenerentola, Alessandro Rak, Ivan Cappiello, Marino Guarnieri, Dario Sansone
Under The Tree, Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurdsson
La Vita in Comune, Edoardo Winspeare

For more information about the programme visit the Venice website.