The China Mail - What to look for at the Venice Film Festival

Dozens of stars are expected on the Lido, major directorial talents are bidding for comebacks and a strong field of films are competing.

AFP selects some of the anticipated highlights and talking points for the August 27 to September 6 glam-fest:

- The main competition -

A total of 21 films are in the running for the Golden Lion, the festival's top prize, won last year by "The Room Next Door" by Spanish director Pedro Almodovar.

The most keenly awaited titles include:

- "The Wizard of the Kremlin" by Olivier Assayas

An adaptation of a best-selling book of the same name about Putin's rise to power, featuring British actor Jude Law as the Russian president.

- "A House of Dynamite" by Kathryn Bigelow

The first film since 2017 by the Oscar-winning director of "Zero Dark Thirty" which sees White House officials grappling with a missile and nuclear weapons crisis.

- "The Smashing Machine" by Benny Safdie

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is cast in what appears a tailor-made role as an ageing wrestler, with Emily Blunt as his wife.

- "The Voice of Hind Rajab" by Kaouther Ben Hania

This drama reconstructing the real-life killing of a six-year-old Palestinian girl by Israeli troops in Gaza is set to be one of the festival's most political films.

- "The Testament of Ann Lee" by Mona Fastvold

A musical film about a religious sect in the United States by the co-writer of "The Brutalist", again working with her director husband Brady Corbet.

- "Frankenstein" by Guillermo del Toro

A new big-budget version of the cinema classic by the Mexican director, starring hard-working Oscar Isaac, who is featured in two major Venice films.

- "Jay Kelly" by Noah Baumbach

A comedy co-written by Baumbach and his wife Greta Gerwig, featuring an A-list cast led by George Clooney, who plays an actor with an identity crisis.

- "Bugonia" by Yorgos Lanthimos

The latest collaboration between the Greek director and Emma Stone, who won an Oscar for her performance in their 2023 film "Poor Things", which won Venice's Golden Lion.

- "No Other Choice" by Park Chan-wook

The South Korean auteur Park returns to Venice after two decades with a thriller about a vindictive manager who loses his job.

- "The Stranger" by Francois Ozon

An ambitious new adaptation of French author Albert Camus's masterful novella of the same name, shot in black-and-white.

- "Nuhai" ("Girl") by Shu Qi

Taiwanese superstar Shu makes her directorial debut with a story about multiple generations of women.

- Best of the rest -

- "After the Hunt" by Luca Guadagnino

Julia Roberts makes her Venice debut for the premiere of this cancel culture-themed drama about a sexual assault case at a prestigious American university.

- "In the Hand of Dante" by Julian Schnabel

Held up by a dispute between the director and his financial backers over its 150-minute length, this crime thriller stars Isaac, with cameos from veterans Al Pacino and John Malkovich.

- "Dead Man's Wire" by Gus Van Sant

The American director's first movie since 2018 centres on a real-life hostage drama at a loan agency, with performances by Bill Skarsgard and Pacino.

Others to watch include big-budget French thriller "Chien 51", which will close the festival, and "Scarlet" by Japanese animator Mamoru Hosoda.

- Documentaries -

German director Werner Herzog's latest film, "Ghost Elephants", about a mythical herd of elephants in Angola, stands out.

So too does a portrait of veteran American journalist Seymour Hersh by Laura Poitras, who returns to Venice after winning its top prize in 2022 for her documentary about activist photographer Nan Goldin's campaign against the opioid industry.

Other headliners include Sofia Coppola's intimate documentary about her friend the fashion designer Marc Jacobs, as well as "Broken English" by Jane Pollard and Iain Forsyth about British singer Marianne Faithfull, who died in January.

Viewers will need patience -- and a strong bladder -- for "Director's Diary", a five-hour epic by dissident Russian director Alexander Sokurov based on his personal diary notes from the Soviet era.

- Also showing -

Netflix has three films in competition -- "Frankenstein", "A House of Dynamite" and "Jay Kelly" -- showcasing some of its best hopes of clinching its first Best Picture award at the Oscars next year.

The increasingly long run-times of films -- averaging 2h15 to 2h30 at Venice, according to Artistic Director Alberto Barbera -- caused him to grumble about the difficulty of fitting them all in the schedule.

B.Carter--ThChM