Venice Film Festival: Five premieres not to miss

this Version 81 of Venice Film Festival The festival officially opens on Wednesday, and the eyes of the world are on the Lido.

Long-running festival Director Alberto Barbera and his team unveiled a star-studded lineup, including shows that could compete during awards season. But amid such a busy schedule, which premieres are not to be missed?

Hip replacementLeading film critic David Rooney scours the selections for Italy’s biggest festival to pick out some of the most intriguing titles.

fauvism

Brady Corbet, 16, in Venice Mysterious SkinInstead of flying home with director Greg Araki and co-star Joseph Gordon-Levitt, he stayed a few extra days to see Claire Denis’ new film, IntruderHis cinematic curiosity is also reflected in the choice of filmmakers he has worked with, including Michael Haneke, Sean Durkin, Lars von Trier, Olivier Assayas and Mia Hansen-Love. Co-written with Mona Fastvold, this is Corbett’s third hit as a director (following The Childhood of a Leader and Sound of Light), starring Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce and Joe Alwyn, is an immigrant drama that tells the story of László Toth, a Hungarian Jewish architect who survived the Holocaust and set out with his wife in 1947 to pursue the American dream, toiling in poverty his entire life until a lucrative contract changes his future.

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Kiyoshi Kurosawa is one of the most distinctive figures in the new wave of Japanese horror films, having made his debut in 1997 with curea hallucinatory detective story full of fear. Since then, he has freely experimented with different genres, from psychological crime thrillers to ghost stories, contemplative sci-fi, historical mysteries, ethereal afterlife reflections, romances and family dramas, all with an element of mystery. His latest work revolves around a young factory worker who sells things online on the side; he quits his day job and rents a lake house outside the city, where a series of disturbing events gradually develop into a life-threatening downward spiral.

I’m still here

Walter Salles’ first feature film since returning to his native Brazil in 2008 is based on the book by Marcelo Rubens Pava and the author’s personal experiences. Set in 1971 under Brazil’s military dictatorship, it tells the story of a mother forced to reinvent herself as an activist after her family life is devastated by a random act of violence. In a delightful arc, the title character is played in her youth by Fernanda Torres and in her later years by her mother, Fernanda Montenegro, who memorably starred in Salles’s 1998 breakthrough film, Central Station.

Queer

After the actors’ strike and the release date was postponed Challenger After being pulled from its Venice premiere last year, Luca Guadagnino is back. Given the director’s talent for dramas of desire, who better to direct this iconoclastic gay literary work by William S. Burroughs? Guadagnino’s second collaboration with screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes stars Daniel Craig as Burroughs’ alter ego, who drifts through Mexico City in the late 1940s, becomes addicted to heroin and hangs out with a group of gay American expats. One in particular catches his eye, a preppy ex-military kid played by Drew Starkey, sparking an intoxicating romance. Supporting actors include Lesley Manville and Jason Schwartzman, and the score is by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.

The next room

After his feet got wet by his shorts The human voice and Strange lifestyleSpain’s master of feature films, Pedro Almodóvar, brought the long-awaited English-language film to cinema with the 2020 film adaptation of Sigrid Nunez’s novel. What are you going through?Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton play two writers who worked together at a magazine when they were young and had a close relationship. Years later, their lives have gone in different directions, one becoming an autobiographical novelist and the other a war correspondent, and they meet again. The cast also includes John Turturro, Alessandro Nivola and Juan Diego Botto.

This story originally appeared in the Aug. 21 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.