Pedro Paramo
Dir. Rodrigo Prieto
Prod: Rafael Ley, Stacy Perskie, Francisco Ramos
A Netflix backed project that went into production in March of last year, Mexican cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto moved into his feature directorial debut with a film that follows a dusty road to a town of death. Pedro Paramo is about time shifts from one consciousness to another in a hypnotic flow of dreams, desires, and memories, a world of ghosts dominated by the figure of Pedro Páramo lover, overlord, murderer. Manuel García-Rulfo and Tenoch Huerta topline. We see this grabbing the closing film spot a la last year’s Society of the Snow.
Prediction: Out of Competition.
Planète B.
Dir. Aude Léa Rapin
Prod: Eve Robin
Shot in March of last year, Aude Léa Rapin‘s ambitious sophomore film featuring the likes of Adele Exarchopoulos, Souheila Yacoub and India Hairwas was shot in Lyon. A female-driven science fiction thriller, Planète B. follows Julia, one of the activists who mysteriously disappeared after participating in a violent protest. After being shot in the eye by a flash-ball gun, Julia fainted and woke up in an unknown world, known as Planet B. Rapin debut Les héros ne meurent jamais (2019) was selected for Cannes.
Prediction: Giornate degli Autori.
Quasi a casa
Dir. Carolina Pavone
Prod: Nanni Moretti
A former assistant director on several Nanni Moretti films (dating back to 2015’s Mia Madre) Carolina Pavone lassoed Lou Doillon, Maria Chiara Arrighini, Stefano Abbati and Michele Eburnea back in September in the backdrop of Rome for her feature debut. Quasi a casa is a quirky comedy that follows Caterina. Now in her 20s, she wants to be a musician, but she’s paralyzed by fear and insecurity. One summer, she meets her idol, the French singer Mia and gets to know her. It’s the beginning of a complex relationship that will accompany Caterina over the years and finally allow her to find home. Almost.
Prediction: Horizons Extra. – CONFIRMED: Giornate degli Autori
Queer
Dir. Luca Guadagnino
Prod: Luca Guadagnino, Lorenzo Mieli
This apparently was a film that would have been set for a Venice splash all along. Production on Luca Guadagnino‘s latest will likely make Bond fans recoil as Daniel Craig goes … there. Based on William S. Burroughs novel, Queer follows Lee, who recounts his life in Mexico City among American expatriate college students and bar owners surviving on part-time jobs and GI Bill benefits. Lee is self-conscious, insecure and driven to pursue a young man named Allerton, who is based on Adelbert Lewis Marker (1930-1998), a recently discharged American Navy serviceman from Jacksonville, FL, who befriended Burroughs in Mexico City. Drew Starkey, Lesley Manville, Jason Schwartzman and Henry Zaga also star. Guadagnino’s Challengers was set to open last year’s Venice until it was pulled, so perhaps this was a favor for a favor secured spot.
Prediction: In Competition.
Saint-Ex
Dir. Pablo Agüero
Prod: Julien Madon, Aimée Buidine
Stamped with a domestic France release in December, despite being more of a Cannes or San Sebastian Film Festival type of filmmaker with Salamandra (2008), Eva Doesn’t Sleep (2015), and Akelarre (2020), it wouldn’t be impossible to see this represent France’s output on the Lido. In April of last year, filming took place in such backdrops of France, Corsica, Patagonia and New York. Featuring Louis Garrel, Vincent Cassel and Diane Kruger, Saint-Ex is set in 1930, this centres around Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, an Airmail pilot in Argentina. When his best friend who happens to be Airmail’s best pilot Henri Guillaumet disappears in the Andes, Saint-Ex decides to set out in search of him, against all odds. Cinematographer Claire Mathon is onboard here.
Prediction: In Competition.
Sicilian Letters
Dir. Fabio Grassadonia / Antonio Piazza
Prod: Carlotta Calori, Francesca Cima, Nicola Giuliano, Viola Prestieri.
After double dipping in the Cannes Critics’ Week with their first two films, Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza will likely receive a mega spotlight release with a tale that is loosely based on a specific period in the life of Matteo Messina Denaro — the mafioso linked to the massacres which unfolded in Italy in the early Nineties. Toni Servillo, Elio Germano, Daniela Marra, Barbora Bobulova, Fausto Russo Alesi, Giuseppe Tantillo, Antonia Truppo and Tommaso Ragno star in Sicilian Letters. Production took place in May of last year.
Prediction: In Competition.
Stranger Eyes
Dir. Yeo Siew Hua
Prod: Fran Borgia, Stefano Centini, Jean-Laurent Csinidis, Alex C. Lo.
We were thinking that Yeo Siew Hua might land in Cannes with his sophomore film, but after a no-show in Locarno where he claimed the Golden Leopard with his debut A Land Imagined (2018), and so now all points to Venice. Starring Chien-Ho Wu, Lee Kang-sheng, Vera Chen, and Mila Troncoso, Stranger Eyes follows a young father who receives footage of his private life after his baby daughter goes missing and decides to flip the gaze in a bid to track the mysterious voyeur.
Prediction: In Competition.
Submergée
Dir. Alanté Kavaïté
Prod: Stéphanie Carreras, Philippe Pujo, Antoine Simkine
Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Daphné Patakia, Dali Benssalah, Miou Miou and Patrick Chesnais star in a story takes us to an island with no future, given that it’s already partly submerged underwater. A woman is caring for ten or so very elderly individuals, but the arrival of five travellers turns their lives upside down. Production on Lithuanian born, French filmmaker Alanté Kavaïté‘s third feature took place in Paris in October of last year but Submergée kinda dates back to 2016 – as it was developed at the Sélection Annuelle du Groupe Ouest. Her feature debut Summer of Sangaile was spotlighted at Sundance in 2015.
Prediction: Horizons.
Tarika
Dir. Milko Lazarov
Prod: TBD.
Best known for 2018’s Berlinale preemed Ága, Bulgarian filmmaker Milko Lazarov got his debut back in Venice’s Giornate Degli Autori in the 2013 with his debut, Alienation. Filming on Tarika took place in 2022 with Vesela Valcheva, Zachari Baharov, Ivan Barnev, Ivan Savov and Christos Stergioglou as the top billing. This is about a young girl living with her father and her grandmother in a small hut near the border far away from the local village. Marked by her “butterfly wings”, a rare bone condition she inherited from her mother, the girl has been the source of the community’s superstition forever. When the local cattle are struck down by a mysterious disease, fear starts spreading among the villagers.
Prediction: Horizons.
The Brutalist
Dir. Brady Corbet
Prod: Nick Gordon, D.J. Gugenheim, Andrew Lauren, Trevor Matthews, Andrew Morrison, Brian Young
Impacted by the pandemic, it’s been a longer than expected journey for Brady Corbet and his third feature film. A favorite of Venice having premiered both of his features in The Childhood of a Leader (winner of the Orrizonti Best Director and Luigi De Laurentiis Lion of the Future Awards) in 2015, and Vox Lux in 2018, this film stars Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Joe Alwyn, Alessandro Nivola, Jonathan Hyde, Guy Pearce, Isaach De Bankolé, Raffey Cassidy and muse Stacy Martin. This chronicles 30 years in the life of László Tóth, a Hungarian-born Jewish architect who survived the Holocaust. After the end of World War II, he emigrated to the United States with his wife, Erzsébet, to experience the “American dream”. László initially endures poverty and indignity, but he soon lands a contract with a mysterious and wealthy client, Harrison Lee Van Buren, that will change the course of his life. The Brutalist was bought by the Focus Features folks.
Prediction: In Competition.
The Green Parrot
Dir. Elsa Kremser & Levin Georg Peter
Prod: Lixi Frank, David Bohun, Elsa Kremser, Levin Peter, Heino Deckert.
Elsa Kremser and Levin Georg Peter of docu Space Dogs (2019 – Locarno Film Festival) mounted a fiction project flying a bit under the radar. The Green Parrot is about Masha — weho survived a suicide attempt – Misha works in the morgue. If her suicide had succeeded, he would have opened her body for the autopsy. But life holds a different twist for them – and this is the story of their summer.
Prediction: Giornate degli Autori.
The Last Showgirl
Dir. Gia Coppola
Prod: Robert Schwartzman, Natalie Farrey
The Lido has become Gia Coppola‘s home showcasing his first two director outing with 2013’s Palo Alto (Horizons section) and Mainstream in 2020. It should be a third time’s the charm with her new film The Last Showgirl — which stars Pamela Anderson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Dave Bautista, Brenda Song, Kiernan Shipka, and Billie Lourd. This follows a seasoned showgirl who must plan for her future when her show abruptly closes after a 30-year run. As a dancer in her fifties, she struggles with what to do next. As a mother, she strives to repair a strained relationship with her daughter, who often took a backseat to her showgirl family.
Prediction: Out of Competition.
The Quiet Son
Dir. Delphine Coulin and Muriel Coulin
Prod: Marie Guillaumond, Olivier Delbosc
Delphine Coulin and Muriel Coulin have been associated to Cannes but that was clearly not the case for 2024 – so now we are looking toward the lido for a project that was filmed last summer with Vincent Lindon and Benjamin Voisin. Adapted from the novel What You Need from the Night by Laurent Petitmangin, The Quiet Son is the story about a family story rooted in Lorraine — about a railway-worker father and his two sons, following the death of their mother.
Prediction: Horizons.
The Return
Dir. Uberto Pasolini
Prod: James Clayton, Uberto Pasolini
The Bleecker Street folks just dated this film for the beginning of December which means a major film fest premiere could totally be in the cards for The Return. Starring Juliette Binoche, Ralph Fiennes, Charlie Plummer, Marwan Kenzari with Claudio Santamaria and with Ángela Molina, after 20 years away, Odysseus (Fiennes) washes up on the shores of Ithaca, haggard and unrecognizable. The King has returned from the Trojan War, but much has changed in his kingdom. His beloved wife Penelope (Binoche) is a prisoner in her own home, hounded by suitors vying to be king. Their son Telemachus (Plummer) faces death at the hands of these suitors, who see him as merely an obstacle to their pursuit of the kingdom. Uberto Pasolini was at Venice 2013 with the drama Still Life – which won the Best Director in the Horizons section.
Prediction: In Competition.
The Room Next Door
Dir. Pedro Almodóvar
Prod: Agustín Almodóvar
Just a couple of days back one of the big trades confirmed Pedro Almodóvar was heading back to Venice. His more recent films have included 2019’s Pain and Glory and 2021 fest opener Madres paralelas and dating back to 1988 with Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. He moved into English language cinema this past March with Julianne Moore, Tilda Swinton, Alessandro Nivola and John Turturro. The Room Next Door deals with the rift between a very imperfect mother and war correspondent (Martha) and her resentful daughter, as well as with the former’s relationship with author Ingrid.
Prediction: In Competition.
Things That You Kill
Dir. Alireza Khatami
Prod: Alireza Khatami, Cyriac Auriol, Elisa Sepulveda Ruddoff, Michael Solomon, Mariusz Wlodarski
After 2017’s Oblivion Verses (winner of Venice’s Orizzonti Award for Best Screenplay, and the FIPRESCI Award for Best Debut Film), and the co-directed Un Certain Regard selected Terrestrial Verses from 2023’s Cannes, the Iranian-born, Canadian based filmmaker Alireza Khatami shot in Turkey last summer on a thriller about a university professor who is haunted by the suspicious death of his ailing mother, and coerces his enigmatic gardener to execute a cold-blooded act of vengeance. Things That You Kill stars Ekin Koç, Erkan Kolçakköstendil, Hazar Ergüçlü and Ercan Kesal.
Prediction: In Competition.
Those Who Find Me
Dir. Dea Kulumbegashvili
Prod: Ilan Amouyal, David Zerat, Luca Guadagnino
Our most anticipated sophomore feature apparently was not ready for what normally would have been a Cannes competition premiere (her masterwork debut Beginning was perhaps the best film during the pandemic), and instead everything is pointing towards a Venice premiere. Dea Kulumbegashvili moved into production back in March of last year; Those Who Find Me follows a female obstetrician in a rural part of Georgia who performs illegal abortions / the story revolving around a single gynaecologist obstetrician working in the only hospital in a provincial town, who is unconditionally committed to her Hippocratic Oath, even if it means carrying out illegal abortions. Ia Sukhitashvili and Kakha Kintsurashvili star.
Prediction: In Competition.
Vermiglio, the Mountain Bride
Dir. Maura Delpero
Prod: Carole Baraton, Tatjana Kozar
A winner of a Torino Film Lab award and a Co-Production Village of Les Arcs participant, this sophomore feature film looks the part. Maura Delpero‘s Vermiglio, the Mountain Bride stars Tommaso Ragno, Carlotta Gamba, Sara Serraiocco, Martina Scrinzi and Giuseppe De Domenico and tells the story of three sisters, Lucia, Ada and Flavia: they’re no longer children but not yet women either in the final year of the world war, when a single gunshot signals the end of their innocence. Cinematographer Mikhaïl Krichman in onboard here. Delpero’s debut film Maternal was a 2019 Locarno Film Festival selection and won four prizes.
Prediction: In Competition.
Yunan
Dir. Ameer Fakher Eldin
Prod: Dorothe Beinemeier
Ameer Fakher Eldin broke out of the Venice Film Festival in 2021 with The Stranger, and quickly moved onto his sophomore effort starring Tom Wlaschiha, Sibel Kekilli, Hanna Schygulla and Ali Suliman. Yunan is about an exiled Arab author travels to a remote island in the North Sea to commit suicide. There he stays at a modest hotel run by a devoted elderly woman whose quiet humanity incites a reawakening of his desires and instincts for life.
Prediction: Horizons.
 |
