SCROLL DOWN FOR LINE-UP

The 73rd Venice Film Festival (Aug 31 - Sept 10) has unveiled the 55 features – mixing star vehicles and international auteurs – that will make up this year’s official selection.

A total of 20 films will play in competition, 18 will play out of competition and 19 will play in Horizons.

Venice is on a roll having played host to the Best Picture Oscar winner two years in a row while three years ago Gravity went on to score seven Oscars.

Ahead of the world’s oldest festival, the buzz is palpable once again.

Competition titles include Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals, Pablo Larrain’s Jacqueline Kennedy biopic Jackie (seemingly a last minute confirmation) and Michael Fassbender romance The Light Between Oceans.

Auteur directors among the line-up include Terrence Malick, Lav Diaz, Emir Kusturica and François Ozon. Three Italian films will play in competition.

As previously announced Damien Chazelle’s La La Land will open the blue-ribbon event. Antoine Fuqua’s Magnificent Seven will close the festival.

Out of Competition films include Mel Gibson’s Hacksaw Ridge (Gibson’s first film as director since Apocalypto ten years ago) while the festival will also host the first two episodes of Paolo Sorrentino’s Sky-HBO-Canal+ TV series The Young Pope, starring Jude Law.

The festival will also host new strand ‘Cinema in the Garden’, a series of free open air screenings.

The festival saw 2,901 films in total, 1,468 of which were features.

Conspicuous in its absence was mention of the number of world premieres at the festival. Festival director Alberto Barbera has previously expressed disapproval over world premiere hysteria so this was perhaps a conscious decision.

Barbera announced that this year’s festival would be dedicated to the memories of the late filmmakers Abbas Kiarostami and Michael Cimino. The festival will screen Cimino’s Year of the Dragon and an unreleased digital short film from the series 24 Frames, which Kiarostami was working on prior to his death. In tribute to the Iranian director Venice will also show This Is My Film: 76 Minutes and 15 Seconds with Kiarostami, a collage film made for the occasion by Seifollah Samadian, the director’s former assistant.

Among anticipated 2016/2017 titles not announced today were The Founder, Silence, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, Sully, The Girl On A Train, Weightless, HHhH, Gold, War Machine and Free Fire.

Market and industry events

The festival’s market strand, newly named The Venice Production Bridge (VPB), will take place from September 1 to 5.

The two-day Venice Gap-Financing Market event (September 2-3, 2016) will offer 40 selected European and international projects the opportunity to close their international financing.

The line-up includes 25 projects for feature-length fiction films and feature documentaries, 15 projects for VR and interactive, web Series and  TV series.

The market’s Final Cut strand will take place from September 3 to 5 and aims to provide concrete assistance in the completion of films from Africa and from Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Syria.

The VPB is also launching a new initiative this year in the shape of the Book Adaptation Rights Market. The two-day event (September 2 and 3) will see publishers propose the adaptation rights of their new titles as well as their libraries (novels, series, graphic novels, essays…) to international producers in a dedicated area within the VPB.

On September 3 and 4, the VPB will host the European Film Forum organized with Creative Europe Media and the European Commission.

Venice 2016

Competition

• La La Land (USA) Damien Chazelle
  Opening film
• The Bad Batch (USA) Ana Lily Amirpour
• Une Vie (Fra-Bel) Stéphane Brizé
• The Light Between Oceans (USA-Aust-NZ) Derek Cianfrance
• El ciudadano ilustre (Arg-Spa) Mariano Cohn, Gastón Duprat
• Spira mirabilis (Ita-Swi) Massimo D’anolfi, Martina Parenti
• Ang Babaeng Humayo (The Woman Who Left) (Phi) Lav Diaz
• La región salvaje (Mexico) Amat Escalante
• Nocturnal Animals (USA) Tom Ford
• Piuma (Italy) Roan Johnson
• Rai (Paradise) (Rus-Ger) Andrei Konchalovsky
• Brimstone (Neth-Ger-Bel-Fra-UK-Swe) Martin Koolhoven
• Na mliječnom putu (On the Milky Road) (Ser-UK-USA) Emir Kusturica
• Voyage of Time (USA-Ger) Terrence Malick
• El Cristo ciego (Chl-Fra) Christopher Murray
• Frantz (Fra-Ger) François Ozon
• Questi giorni (Ita) Giuseppe Piccioni
• Arrival (USA) Denis Villeneuve
• Les beaux jours d’Aranjuez (3D) (Fra-Ger) Wim Wenders
• Jackie (USA-Chi) Pablo Larrain

Out Of Competition

• The Young Pope (episodes 1+2) (Ita-Fra-Spa-USA) Paolo Sorrentino
  Special event
• Planetarium (Fra-Bel) Rebecca Zlotowski
  Special screening

Fiction

• The Magnificent Seven (USA) Antoine Fuqua
  Closing film
• The Bleeder (USA-Can) Philippe Falardeau
• Hacksaw Ridge (USA-Aus) Mel Gibson
• The Journey (UK) Nick Hamm
• À jamais (Fra-Por) Benoît Jacquot
• Gantz:O (Jap) Kawamura Yasushi
• Miljeong (The Age of Shadows) (S Kor) KIM Jee woon
• Monte (Ita-USA-Fra) Amir Naderi
• Tommaso (Ita) Kim Rossi Stuart

Non-Fiction

• Our War (Ita-USA) Bruno Chiaravalloti, Claudio Jampaglia, Benedetta Argentieri
• I Called Him Morgan (Swe-USA) Kasper Collin
• One More Time with Feeling (3D) (UK) Andrew Dominik
• Austerlitz (Ger) Sergei Loznitsa
• Assalto al cielo (Ita) Francesco Munzi
• Safari (Aus-Den) Ulrich Seidl
• American Anarchist (USA) Charlie Siskel

Orizzonti

• Tarde para la ira (Spa) Raúl Arévalo
• King Of The Belgians (Bel-Neth-Bul) Peter Brosens, Jessica Woodworth
• Through The Wall (Laavor Et Hakin) (Isr) Rama Burshtein
• Liberami (Ita-Fra) Federica di Giacomo
• Big Big World (Koca Dünya) (Turk) Reha Erdem
• Gukoroku (Japan) Ishikawa Kei
• Maudite Poutine (Can) Karl Lemieux
• São Jorge (Por-Fra) Marco Martins
• Dawson City: Frozen Time (USA-Fra) Bill Morrison
• Réparer les vivants (Fra-Bel) Katell Quillévéré
• White Sun (Nep-USA-Qat-Neth) Deepak Rauniyar
• Malaria (Ira) Parviz Shahbazi
• Kékszakállú (Arg) Gastón Solnicki
• Home (Bel) Fien Troch
• Die Einsiedler (Ger-Aust) Ronny Trocker
• Il più grande sogno (Ita) Michele Vannucci
• Boys in the Trees (Aus) Nicholas Verso
• Ku qian (Bitter Money) (HK-Fra) Wang Bing
• Dark Night (USA) Tim Sutton

Cinema Nel Giardino

• Inseparables (Arg) Marcos Carnevale
• Franca: Chaos And Creation (Ita-USA) Francesco Carrozzini
• In Dubious Battle (USA) James Franco
• Geumul (The Net) (S Kor) Kim Ki-duk
• L’estate addosso (Ita) Gabriele Muccino
• The Secret Life of Pets (3D) (USA) Chris Renaud, Yarrow Cheney
• Robinù (Ita) Michele Santoro
• My Art (USA) Laurie Simmons