Sorrentino to Open the 82nd Venice Film Festival

From 27 August to 6 September, the Lido will host the 82nd Venice Film Festival with a programme that once again highlights the presence of Italian directors. The jury for the official section of the next edition of the Mostra has brought together a team chaired by Alexander Payne and made up of screenwriters, directors, actors, and producers. Stéphane Brizé, who competed at the festival in 2023 with Hors Saison and has just finished shooting his latest film, Un bon petit soldat, starring Vincent Lindon and Alba Rohrwacher, will participate alongside Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof, winner of the Special Jury Prize at Cannes 2024 for The Seed of the Sacred Fig, as well as Brazilian actress Fernanda Torres, winner of the Palme d’Or for Best Actress for Arnaldo Jabor’s Love Me Forever or Never in 1986 and Oscar nominee and Golden Globe winner for her work in Walter Salles‘ I’m Still Here. Italy is represented on the jury by writer and director Maura Delpero, the first woman to win the David di Donatello for Best Director, who also won the Silver Lion-Grand Jury Prize last year at this festival with her second film, Vermiglio, and was nominated for an Oscar for Best International Feature Film in 2025. Also on the jury are Romanian screenwriter, director and producer Cristian Mungiu, winner of the Palme d’Or in 2007 for 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, and Chinese actress Zhao Tao, collaborator of director Jia Zhang-Ke and winner of a David di Donatello award for her role in Shun Li and the Poet (Andrea Segre, 2012).

The jury for the Orizzonti section will be chaired by French director Julia Ducournau, winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes with Titane in 2021. She will be joined by Italian director and video artist Yuri Ancarani, Argentine critic Fernando Enrique Juan Lima, Shannon Murphy, who competed in Venice with her debut film Babyteeth, and American director RaMell Ross.

The opening film of the Mostra will be La grazia, by Paolo Sorrentino, starring Toni Servillo, and it will close with Chien 51, a dystopian thriller presented out of competition, by French director Cédric Jimenez. The Italian representation will continue with Pietro Marcello and his Duse, about the legendary actress, starring Valeria Bruni Tedeschi; Elisa by Leonardo di Costanzo, and two documentaries: Soto le nuvole by Gianfranco Rosi (Sacro GRA) and the latest from Franco Maresco, Un film fatto per bene.

Olivier Assayas participates in the official section of the Venice Film Festival with The Wizard of the Kremlin, starring Paul Dano, Jude Law and Alicia Vikander (who starred in the great series Irma Vep), with a screenplay by the director and Emmanuel Carrère. The film tells the story of a young Russian filmmaker who becomes an unlikely advisor to Vladimir Putin as he rises to power in post-Soviet Russia, navigating the complexities and chaos of the new era.

Lido audiences will enjoy three Netflix productions: Guillermo Del Toro‘s version of Frankenstein (Golden Lion winner in 2017 for The Shape of Water), starring Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi and Christoph Waltz; Kathryn Bigelow‘s A House of Dynamite, with Idris Elba and Rebecca Ferguson; and Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly, with George Clooney playing an actor in crisis. Jim Jarmusch (who had not returned to Venice since Coffee and Cigarettes participated out of competition in 2003) and Bennie Safdie complete the American contribution, respectively, with Father Mother Sister Brother and The Smashing Machine, the biopic about Mark Kerr (Dwayne Johnson).

Benjamin Voisin in The Stranger (François Ozon, 2025)

The six female directors whose films have been selected to participate in the official section of the Venice Film Festival are Tunisia’s Kaouther Ben Hania (Four Daughters, 2023), with The Voice of Hind Rajab; Kathryn Bigelow, with A House of Dynamite; Valérie Donzelli, with À pied d’œuvre; Ildikó Enyedi, with Silent Friend, starring Tony Leung and Léa Seydoux; Mona Fastvold, with The Testament of Ann Lee, co-written with Brady Corbet (The Brutalist); and Taiwanese actress Shu Qi, with her directorial debut, Nühai (Girl).

Chinese director Cai Shangjun participates with The Sun Rises on Us All, which completes the selection of Asian films in competition with Park Chan-wook‘s No Other Choice, a new adaptation of the novel The Ax (Arcadia, Costa Gavras), starring Lee Byung-hun. This edition will also see the return of László Nemes (Son of Saul) with Orphan, a family tragedy set against the backdrop of the Hungarian revolution.

Bugonia (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2025).

At the 82nd Venice Film Festival, we will have the opportunity to see François Ozon’s latest film, the eagerly awaited adaptation of Albert Camus’ The Stranger, starring Benjamin Voisin, as well as Yorgos Lanthimos‘ latest, Bigonia, a remake of the Korean film Saving Planet Earth. Luca Guadagnino will premiere After the Hunt, starring Julia Roberts and Andrew Garfield, out of competition; director and visual artist Julian Schnabel will bring In The Hand of Dante to the Lido, featuring Jason Momoa, Gerard Butler, Gal Gadot, Al Pacino, Oscar Isaac (playing the bard) and Martin Scorsese among a large cast. Pacino will also be in Venice with Gus Van Sant‘s film Dead Man’s Wire, which he stars in alongside Bill Skarsgård.

Sofia Coppola, Lucrecia Martel and Aleksandr Sokurov are also among the names on a splendid programme that promises unforgettable film screenings accompanied by spritzes, sea views from the press room and early mornings on crowded vaporettos, all while enjoying the unrivalled hospitality of the Venice Film Festival.

Competition

• La grazia — Paolo Sorrentino
• The Wizard of the Kremlin — Olivier Assayas
• Jay Kelly — Noah Baumbach
• The Voice of Hind Rajab — Kaouther Ben Hania
• A House of Dynamite — Kathryn Bigelow
• Ri gua zhong tian / The Sun Rises on Us All — Cai Shangjun
• Frankenstein — Guillermo del Toro
• Elisa — Leonardo di Costanzo
• À pied d’œuvre — Valérie Donzelli
• Silent Friend — Ildikó Enyedi
• The Testament of Ann Lee — Mona Fastvold
• Father Mother Sister Brother — Jim Jarmusch
• Bugonia — Yorgos Lanthimos
• Duse — Pietro Marcello
• Un film fatto per bene — Franco Maresco
• Orphan — László Nemes
• Eojjeol suga eopda (No Other Choice) — Park Chan-wook
• Sotto le nuvole — Gianfranco Rosi
• The Smashing Machine — Benny Safdie
• Nühai / Girl — Shu Qi

Orizzonti

• Mother — Teona Strugar Mitevska
• Komedie elahi / Divine Comedy — Ali Asgari
• Hiedra — Ana Cristina Barragán
• Il rapimento di Arabella — Carolina Cavalli
• Estrany riu / Strange River — Jaume Claret Muxart
• Harà watan / Lost Land — Akio Fujimoto
• Grand ciel — Akiro Hata
• Rose of Nevada — Mark Jenkin
• Late Fame — Kent Jones
• Dinți de lapte / Milk Teeth — Mihai Mincan
• Pin de fartie — Alejo Moguillansky
• Otec / Father — Tereza Nvotová
• En el camino — David Pablos
• Song of Forgotten Trees — Anuparna Roy
• Un anno di scuola — Laura Samani
• The Souffleur — Gastón Solnicki
• Barrio triste — Stillz
• Human Resource — Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit
• Funeral Casino Blues — Roderick Warich

Out of Competition – Fiction

• Sermon to the Void — Hilal Baydarov
• L’isola di Andrea — Antonio Capuano
• After the Hunt — Luca Guadagnino
• Hateshinaki Scarlet — Mamoru Hosoda
• Den sidste viking / The Last Viking — Anders Thomas Jensen
• In The Hand of Dante — Julian Schnabel
• La valle dei sorrisi — Paolo Strippoli
• Dead Man’s Wire — Gus Van Sant
• Orfeo — Virgilio Villoresi
• Chien 51 — Cédric Jimenez (closing)

Out of Competition – Nonfiction

• Kabul, Between Prayers — Aboozar Amini
• Ferdinando Scianna – Il fotografo dell’ombra — Roberto Andò
• Marc by Sofia — Sofia Coppola
• I diari di Angela – Noi due cineasti. Capitolo terzo — Yervant Gianikian, Angela Ricci Lucchi
• Ghost Elephants — Werner Herzog
• Baba wa al-Qadhafi / My Father and Qaddafi — Jihan K
• The Tale of Sylian — Tamara Kotevska
• Nuestra tierra — Lucrecia Martel
• Remake — Ross McElwee
• Kim Novak’s Vertigo — Alexandre Philippe
• Cover-Up — Laura Poitras, Mark Obenhaus
• Broken English — Jane Pollard, Iain Forsyth
• Zapiski nastoyashego prestupnika / Notes of a True Criminal — Alexander Rodnyansky, Andriy Alferov
• Director’s Diary — Aleksandr Sokurov
• Hui jia / Back Home — Tsai Ming-liang

Giornate degli autori – Competition

• Memory — Vladlena Sandu
• Anoche conquisté Tebas —  Gabriel Azorín
• Arkoudotrypa / Bearcave — Stergios Dinopoulos, Krysianna B. Papadakis
• Daroon-E Amir / Inside Amir — Amir Azizi
• La gioia — Nicolangelo Gelormini
• Memory of Princess Mumbi — Damien Hauser
• Past Future Continuous — Morteza Ahmadvand, Firouzeh Khosrovani
• A Sad and Beautiful World — Cyril Aris
• Short Summer — Nastia Korkia
• Vanilla — Mayra Hermosillo