Vets Paul Morrissey, Isaac Julien, Monte Hellman and Pacino are among New Venice Film Fest Possibilities

While there are no mentions of Terrence Malick, Variety are confirming the obvious (view my predictions) in Aronofsky’s Black Swan, Reichardt’s Meek’s Cutoff, Corbijn’s The American, Schnabel’s Miral, Coppola’s Somewhere, Kechiche’s Black Venus, Ozon’s Potiche, Tykwer’s Three and Cordier’s Happy Few all making it to the Lido this year, but they’ve added a couple more brow lifters that I’ll delve into below.

Among the titles that are being mentioned for Venice, and which I thought were strictly TIFF items, they and several sources mention Ben Affleck’s The Town will hit the Lido first, and they say the same as well for Tom Hooper’s The King’s Speech, and Iciar Bollain’s Even the Rain – which I saw more as TIFF and San Sebastian double booking. And if Canadian film Richard J. Lewis’ Barney’s Version turns out to be gold, then people might question why it wasn’t the opener in Toronto, instead of it now being billed as a Venice inclusion (worth noting is that it was partially actually shot in the red, white and green of Italy.

Here’s a quick rundown of the title that have yet to mentioned in the trades that are new to us.

A pair of vet filmmakers are coming out from “nowhere” include Warhol factory member Paul Morrissey and the little known News From Nowhere and two decades later, Monte Hellman resurfaces with Road to Nowhere – a noir which stars Shannyn Sossamon. Al Pacino has been struggling in post production with Wilde Salome – which stars Jessica Chastain and that is being tipped for Venice along with Isaac Julien, who’ll bring his installation/film project Ten Thousand Waves which stars Maggie Cheung (see pic). the feel good The First Grader from Brit helmer Justin Chadwick appears to be aiming for a Venice launch – the pic certainly would be a great fit for Toronto and this pair of items (Tsui Hark’s great ensemble crime film Detective Dee and the Pang bros. and their 3D horror pic, The Child’s Eye) would make the Venice edition a huge supporter of Asian films.

Italian items aiming for a home preem include: Alessandro Piva’s Henry, Giada Colagrande’s A Woman, Gianfranco Rosi’s El Sicario, Mario Martone’s Noi Credevamo and Carlo Mazzacurati’s La Passione.