Venice’s 2024 Out of Competition titles include new films from Errol Morris, Tim Burton, Kevin Macdonald, Petra Costa, Asif Kapadia and Harmony Korine.
2073 (UK)
Dir. Asif Kapadia
This documentary and drama hybrid marks Oscar winner Kapadia’s second trip to Venice, after Far North in 2007. Here, he asks what the world will be like in 50 years’ time, inspired by Chris Marker’s 1962 French New Wave featurette La Jetée, which follows a time-traveller risking his life to save humanity. Samantha Morton, Naomi Ackie and Hector Hewer star in the dramatic portions of the film. Producers are Kapadia and George Chignell, with backing from Film4, Neon and Double Agent.
Contact: Dan O’Meara, Neon Rated
The American Backyard (It)
Dir. Pupi Avati
Audience-friendly veteran filmmaker Avati is back in Venice for the first time since Giovanna’s Father in 2008. Directing from a script he adapted from his own novel, Avati returns to the gothic horror genre he has dabbled in more than once for a black-and-white film set just after the end of the Second World War. It explores the similarities between its dual locations — Italy’s Po Valley farmlands and the American Midwest. The Hand Of God breakout Filippo Scotti takes the lead in a drama that also features UK actress Rita Tushingham. The film has the festival’s closing slot on September 7.
Contact: Minerva Pictures
Apocalypse In The Tropics (Bra-US-Den)
Dir. Petra Costa
Best known for her Oscar-nominated documentary The Edge Of Democracy in 2020, Costa keeps her focus on the recent political history of Brazil with her latest non-fiction work. Investigating the intricate relationships between politics and religion in one of the largest Christian nations in the world, Costa focuses on former president Jair Bolsonaro, who seduced the evangelical community with his messianic discourse. Notable political and religious figures, including evangelical pastors, give testimonies in the film, which is produced by Costa herself (via Busca Vida Filmes) and Alessandra Orofino (Peri Producoes).
Contact: Jason Ishikawa, Cinetic
Baby Invasion (US)
Dir. Harmony Korine
The American provocateur returns to Venice with this thriller about a home invasion by people with baby faces, incorporating interactive elements of a first-person shooter video game. Korine, who has reportedly used AI and a gaming engine that enable viewers to shape the story, produced Baby Invasion through his studio collective EDGLRD. UK electronic music artist Burial (aka William Emmanuel Bevan) composed the score.
Contact: CAA Media Finance
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (US-UK)
Dir. Tim Burton
Back in 1988, Beetlejuice was just Burton’s second feature (following Pee-wee’s Big Adventure), burnishing his status and leading to the likes of Batman, Edward Scissorhands and Ed Wood. The belated sequel, which opens Venice Out of Competition, sees the return of Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara, alongside new cast members Justin Theroux, Monica Bellucci, Jenna Ortega and Willem Dafoe. Plan B Entertainment’s Jeremy Kleiner and Dede Gardner produce alongside Burton, Tommy Harper and Marc Toberoff, while Warner Bros releases in North America and key international territories from September 4.
Contact: Warner Bros
Bestiaries, Herbaria, Lapidaries (It-Switz)
Dirs. Massimo D’Anolfi, Martina Parenti
A documentary directing duo whose works have been shown variously at film festivals and in art museums, D’Anolfi and Parenti make their fourth foray to Venice after Spira Mirabilis, which played in Competition in 2016, and Horizons entries Blu (2018) and War And Peace (2020). A three-part film whose non-human protagonists — animals, plants and stones — tell us something about what it means to be human, the documentary was produced by the pair’s own Montmorency Film with Switzerland’s Lomotion.
Contact: Fandango Sales
Broken Rage (Japan)
Dir. Takeshi Kitano
Venice veteran Kitano won the Golden Lion with Hana-bi in 1997 and the Silver Lion for Zatoichi in 2003, while the festival named an honorary award after his 2007 comedy Glory To The Filmmaker!, with Kitano its first recipient. The first half of his latest feature is a gritty action film about a hitman, while the second is a comic parody of the same story, scene by scene. The filmmaker leads the cast under his stage name Beat Takeshi alongside Tadanobu Asano and Nao Omori, both of whom starred in his Cannes 2023 title Kubi. Kitano’s further Venice credits include Takeshis’ (2005), Achilles And The Tortoise (2008) and Beyond Outrage (2012), while yakuza thriller Outrage Coda closed the festival in 2017.
Contact: Amazon MGM Studios
Cloud (Japan)
Dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Kurosawa, who won Venice’s Silver Lion for best director with Wife Of A Spy (2020), returns with a thriller starring Masaki Suda (Wilderness) as a man whose online money-making schemes lead to life-threatening consequences. Before Wife Of A Spy, the Japanese filmmaker was at Venice with Penance (2012), Retribution (2006) and Barren Illusions (1999). Cloud is produced by Nikkatsu Corporation and Tokyo Theatres Company, and has been acquired for France, Spain, Italy and Taiwan.
Contact: Nikkatsu
Disclaimer (UK-US)
Dir: Alfonso Cuaron
Cuaron’s Roma won the Golden Lion for best film at Venice in 2018, going on to earn three Academy Awards. The Mexican filmmaker returns with this self-penned Apple TV+ miniseries, adapted from Renée Knight’s 2015 psychological thriller novel. Cate Blanchett stars as a famed documentary journalist who discovers she will feature as a prominent character in a novel that will reveal her long-buried secret. The series, which streams globally from October 11, is produced by Esperanto Filmoj and Anonymous Content. The cast includes Kevin Kline, Sacha Baron Cohen, Kodi Smit-McPhee and Louis Partridge.
Contact: Apple TV+
Families Like Ours (Den-Fr)
Dir. Thomas Vinterberg
After 11 features including 2021 Oscar winner Another Round, Vinterberg has made his first series. The seven-episode show is set in a near-future Denmark threatened by rising water levels, where a high-school student must choose between her divorced parents and the boy she loves. Zentropa and Studiocanal team up on the series, which includes Scandinavian stars Nikolaj Lie Kaas, David Dencik, Thomas Bo Larsen and Asta Kamma August.
Contact: Chloé Marquet, Studiocanal
Finally (Fr)
Dir. Claude Lelouch
Oscar-winning French filmmaker Lelouch’s latest feature is an ensemble comedy and road movie blending romance and musical genres that the prolific 86-year-old has teased could be his swan song. Kad Merad stars as a lawyer who loses his ability to lie, and heads off on an unfiltered foray through France. Elsa Zylberstein and Sandrine Bonnaire are among a starry cast that also features cameos from several of Lelouch’s famous friends.
Contact: Chloé Marquet, Studiocanal
First Life, Then Cinema (It-Fr)
Dir. Francesca Comencini
The four daughters of Commedia all’italiana stalwart Luigi Comencini have all made careers in the film industry, but Francesca has always been the most eclectic in her directing choices. These have veered from documentary to melodrama to genre TV, as in her recent work on the Sky/Canal+ serialisation of Sergio Corbucci’s Django. Now she turns her attention to her own youthful rapport with her father in a self-penned drama (titled Il Tempo Che Ci Vuole in Italy) that stars Fabrizio Gifuni as Luigi. Marco Bellocchio’s Kavac Film produces alongside Les Films du Worso and Rai Cinema.
Contact: Kavac
Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 2 (US)
Dir. Kevin Costner
This second chapter of a planned four-film western saga was set to release in cinemas in mid-August, but was pulled from the calendar and enjoys a Venice bow following a Cannes launch for Chapter 1. The multi-story tale boasts an ensemble cast that includes Costner, Sienna Miller, Sam Worthington, Giovanni Ribisi and Luke Wilson, playing characters who connect in the titular frontier town. Costner, who directs, produces and also co-writes (with Jon Baird), substantially financed the films’ production — and Chapter 1 is also screening on the Lido.
Contact Warner Bros
Israel Palestine On Swedish TV 1958-1989 (Swe-Fin-Den)
Dir. Goran Hugo Olsson
During a three-decade public service monopoly from the 1950s, Swedish broadcaster SVT’s reporters were a constant presence in war-affected Israel and Palestine. Their footage provides the substance of Olsson’s 202-minute documentary, chronicling the rise of the Israeli State, the Palestinian struggle for independence and a changed media landscape. Olsson won awards at Sundance with The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975, and at Berlin with Concerning Violence. Swedish powerhouses SVT, Film i Väst and the Swedish Film Institute have all been involved in production.
Contact: Reservoir Docs
Leopardi Il Poeta Dell’infinito (It)
Dir. Sergio Rubini
Actor/director Rubini has been hatching this project about Italian romantic poet Giacomo Leopardi for decades. It comes to Venice (as a special screening) 10 years after Mario Martone’s feature Leopardi (Il Giovane Favoloso). Leonardo Maltese (Lord Of The Ants) plays a poet whose premature death aged 38 served only to amplify his fame. Consisting of two 100-minute episodes, the miniseries is produced by Beppe Caschetto’s IBC Movie in collaboration with Italian public broadcaster Rai, which will air it over two evenings in December.
Contact: Rai Com
M: Son Of The Century (It-Fr)
Dir. Joe Wright
Antonio Scurati’s historical novel M: Son Of The Century is the first in a planned quartet of books about Benito Mussolini, from the founding of his fascist organisation to his execution in 1945. This eight-part TV series, adapted by Stefano Bises and Scurati, spans Mussolini’s rise to power, and stars Luca Marinelli (Martin Eden) in the title role. Wright, whose recent films have either bypassed festivals or launched at Telluride or Toronto, returns to Venice where his 2007 feature Atonement played in Competition. The Sky Studios series is produced by Fremantle’s The Apartment in co-production with Pathé.
Contact: Lisa Honig, Fremantle
Maldoror (Belg-Fr)
Dir. Fabrice du Welz
The Belgian filmmaker’s latest stars French actor Anthony Bajon (Gilles Lellouche’s Beating Hearts) as a rogue police officer hunting down a dangerous sex offender. Du Welz has several films under his belt including Cannes 2004 premiere Calvaire, Netflix’s Message From The King (Toronto 2016) and Adoration (Locarno 2019). Maldoror is produced by Frakas Productions and The Jokers, the latter distributing in France.
Contact: WTFilms
The New Years (Sp)
Dir. Rodrigo Sorogoyen
Returning to Venice for the first time since 2019, when Mother premiered in Horizons, the Spanish filmmaker brings a 10-episode drama documenting a decade-long relationship, with each episode set consecutively on New Year’s Eve. The series, which stars Iria del Rio and Francesco Carril, was co-created with Sara Cano and Paula Fabra, and with David Martin de los Santos and Sandra Romero Acevedo also directing episodes. Produced by Movistar Plus+, which distributes internationally, it is made in collaboration with Sorogoyen’s own Caballo Films and Arte France.
Contact: Fabrizia Palazzo, Telefonica
One To One: John & Yoko (UK)
Dir. Kevin Macdonald
Telluride and Toronto regular Macdonald makes his Venice debut with a documentary that explores a single period in the lives of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, as Lennon prepares for his August 1972 Madison Square Garden performance — his only full-length concert between the disbandment of The Beatles and his assassination in 1980. Editor Sam Rice-Edwards co-directs, with Peter Worsley, Alice Webb and Macdonald producing for Mercury Studios and Plan B/KM Films. This is the first feature from the joint producing venture between Macdonald’s KM Films and Plan B.
Contact: Jason Ishikawa, Cinetic
Phantosmia (Phil)
Dir. Lav Diaz
Prolific Filipino director Diaz has earned four awards at Venice to date, including the Golden Lion for 2016’s The Woman Who Left and best film in Horizons for 2008’s Melancholia. Filmed in Sampaloc, Quezon Province, the 245-minute black-and-white drama stars Diaz regulars Ronnie Lazaro, Hazel Orencio and Paul Jake Paule, telling the story of a man who must deal with the darkest moments of his past life in the military in a bid to cure his olfactory disorder. The film is backed by Manila-based Ten17P.
Contact: Diversion
Riefenstahl (Ger)
Dir. Andres Veiel
German director Veiel turns his attention to filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, best known for directing high-profile Nazi propaganda films in the 1930s. With unprecedented access to Riefenstahl’s estate, Veiel explores the director’s refusal to accept responsibility for her role in the Nazi regime and what this says about modern humanity. The film is produced by Vincent Productions, in co-production with WDR, NDR, BR, SWR and rbb and in collaboration with Rai Cinema.
Contact: Beta Cinema
Russians At War (Fr-Can)
Dir. Anastasia Trofimova
Moscow-born émigré Trofimova gained exceptional access to the country’s frontline as she spent a year following a Russian battalion in their advancement through eastern Ukraine. The Russian-Canadian documentary filmmaker is no stranger to war-torn subjects, having made films about Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, including Victims Of ISIS and The Road To Raqqa. Russians At War is produced by France’s Films a Cinq and CAPA along with Canada’s Raja Pictures.
Contact: Newen Connect
Separated (US-Mex)
Dir. Errol Morris
Adapted from Jacob Soboroff’s bestselling book Separated: An American Tragedy, veteran US documentarian Morris’s latest film explores the Trump administration’s infamous family separation policy, which tore apart children and parents at the Mexico-US border. Separated is produced by NBC News Studios and Participant Media with Soboroff executive-producing. This is the Oscar-winning filmmaker’s second time playing Out of Competition at Venice, following 2018’s American Dharma, while he played in Competition with The Unknown Known back in 2013.
Contact: Submarine Entertainment
Songs Of Slow Burning Earth (Ukr-Den-Swe-Fr)
Dir. Olha Zhurba
Two years into the full Russian invasion, Zhurba’s second feature documentary is a diary of Ukraine’s descent into darkness, and a chronology of how the war has become normalised — while finding hope in a new generation of Ukrainians. Zhurba previously directed Outside, a CPH:DOX 2022 premiere that played the non-fiction festival circuit. Songs Of Slow Burning Earth reunites her with that film’s producer Darya Bassel of Ukraine’s Moon Man Productions, whose credits include Maksym Nakonechnyi’s Cannes 2022 Un Certain Regard title Butterfly Vision. Sweden’s We Have A Plan, Denmark’s Final Cut For Real and France’s Arte also produce.
Contact: Michaela Cajkova, Filmotor
Things We Said Today (Fr-Rom)
Dir. Andrei Ujica
Romanian director Ujica is best known for his trilogy of documentaries dedicated to the final years of communism: Videograms Of A Revolution (1992), Out Of The Present (1995) and The Autobiography Of Nicolae Ceaușescu (2010). Things We Said Today, which Ujica has been working on since 2012, takes as its starting point The Beatles’ arrival in New York City for their Shea Stadium concert in August 1965, before expanding to explore wider society. Produced by Les Films du Camélia, Modern Electric Pictures and Tangaj Production, the feature is supported by Arte France Cinéma and INA.
Contact: Minerva Pictures
Why War (Switz-Fr)
Dir. Amos Gitai
Why War features Mathieu Amalric and Micha Lescot as Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein respectively in a drama depicting the 1931 correspondence between the two 20th-century luminaries, on the topic of preventing conflict. Israeli director Gitai found inspiration for the film in the reading he did after the October 7 Hamas attacks and subsequent invasion by Israel. Why War is filmed in French, between Israel, Berlin and Paris, with Switzerland’s Elefant Films leading production. Gitai was last in Venice with comedy-drama Laila In Haifa in Competition in 2020.
Contact: Laurent Truchot
Wolfs (US)
Dir. Jon Watts
Watts’ three Spider-Man films starring Tom Holland have grossed a combined $3.9bn at the global box office. He pivots away from the franchise with this thriller about two lone-wolf fixers — played by Brad Pitt and George Clooney — who are assigned to the same job. This Apple Studios film heads to cinemas (excluding France) for limited release on September 20 and streams on Apple TV+ a week later. Amy Ryan co-stars, and the producer roster includes Clooney and Grant Heslov for Smokehouse Pictures, and Pitt, Jeremy Kleiner and Dede Gardner for Plan B Entertainment.
Contact: Apple Studios/Sony
Venice profiles by Gabriella Berkeley-Agyepong, Ellie Calnan, Adam Cole, Ben Dalton, Tim Dams, Charles Gant, Elaine Guerini, Jeremy Kay, Rebecca Leffler, Lee Marshall, Michael Rosser, Matt Schley, Mona Tabbara, Silvia Wong
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