Venezia 2026: 5 Italian Films in Competition, Moretti Returns
The 83rd Venice International Film Festival, directed by Alberto Barbera (confirmed through 2027), runs September 2–12 at the Lido. President Pietrangelo Buttafuoco emphasized the Biennale's year-round work for cinema, memory, and youth. Barbera noted increasing film submissions and described movies as 'hashtags of the contemporary world.' Italy fields five competition entries: Marco Bechis's 'Ritorno a Buenos Aires', Edoardo De Angelis's 'Il fuoco che ti porti dentro', Nanni Moretti's 'Succederà questa notte' (his first Venice competition since 1989), Andrea Pallaoro's 'The Echo Chamber' (from Bernardo Bertolucci's final screenplay), and Paolo Strippoli's 'L'estranea'. Out of competition: Gianni Amelio's 'Nessun dolore', Mario Martone's 'Scherzetto', and Giovanni Veronesi's 'Dio ride' (closing film). Orizzonti includes Alina Marazzi's 'La ragazza con la Leica', Anna Foglietta's 'Una storia', Edoardo Gabriellini's 'La città dei vivi', and Tommaso Landucci's 'I figli della scimmia'. Venice Open features Valerio Vestoso's HBO Max series 'Peccato', Karen Di Porto's 'Juso per ferie', Walter Fasano's documentary 'Nino – Un film su Nino Rota', Francesco Carrozzini's 'Be Brave', and Luca Guadagnino's 435-minute 'Joie de vivre'. Roberto De Paolis's 'Serpenti' is in Venezia Spotlight. The opening film is Danny Boyle's 'INK'.
Key facts
- 83rd Venice Film Festival runs September 2–12, 2026 at Lido
- Alberto Barbera confirmed as director through 2027
- Five Italian films in competition: Bechis, De Angelis, Moretti, Pallaoro, Strippoli
- Moretti returns to Venice competition after 37 years
- Pallaoro's film uses Bertolucci's last screenplay
- Guadagnino's 'Joie de vivre' runs 435 minutes
- Danny Boyle's 'INK' is the opening film
- HBO Max series 'Peccato' by Vestoso in Venice Open
Entities
Artists
- Alberto Barbera
- Pietrangelo Buttafuoco
- Marco Bechis
- Edoardo De Angelis
- Nanni Moretti
- Andrea Pallaoro
- Paolo Strippoli
- Bernardo Bertolucci
- Gianni Amelio
- Mario Martone
- Giovanni Veronesi
- Alina Marazzi
- Anna Foglietta
- Edoardo Gabriellini
- Tommaso Landucci
- Valerio Vestoso
- Karen Di Porto
- Walter Fasano
- Francesco Carrozzini
- Luca Guadagnino
- Roberto De Paolis
- Danny Boyle
- Casey Affleck
- Ali Asgari
- Stéphan Brizé
- May el-Toukhy
- Werner Herzog
- Cédric Kahn
- Ilya Khrzhanovsky
- Hirokazu Koreeda
- Lee Chang-dong
- Martin McDonagh
- Lance Oppenheim
- Nicolas Pariser
- Shinya Tsukamoto
- Florian Zeller
- Lav Diaz
- Barthelemy Grossmann
- Kornel Mundruczo
- Halkawt Mustafa
- Sabu
- Paul Schrader
- Tristan Seguela
- Alexandre Smia
- Russell Crowe
- Michael Dweck
- Gregory Kershaw
- Alex Gibney
- Amos Gitai
- Barbara Kopple
- Victor Kossakovsky
- Takashi Miike
- Ahmed Hassouna
- Luke Lorentzen
- Andrei Kutsila
- Mariano Llinas
- Julia Loktev
- Sergei Loznitsa
- Theo Rollason
- Dylan Southern
- Will Lovelace
- Jimmy Chin
- Elizabeth Chai
- Wim Wenders
- Maggie Gyllenhaal
- Avi Mograbi
- Laura Poitras
- Rachel Mueller
- Sophie Fiennes
- Yves Montmayeur
- Yonfan
- Phuttiphong Aroonpheg
- Grzegorz Dębowski
- Mohsen Gharaei
- Robert Greene
- Rubayat Hossain
- Auguste Bernard Kouemo Yanghu
- Jacqueline Lentzou
- Xavier Tera
- Jelena Maksimovic
- Jerome Pierrat
- Anuparna Roy
- Ann Sirot
- Raphael Balboni
- Erik Shirai
- Muayad Alayan
- Gael García Bernal
- Rami Kodeih
- Levan Koguashivili
- Gabor Reisz
- Alina Serban
- Margherita Bordino
- Paolo Baratta
- Emma Stone
- Manetti Bros.
- Charlotte Rampling
- Sebastiano Riso
- Micaela Ramazzotti
- Paolo Virzì
- Helen Mirren
- Susanna Nicchiarelli
- Cosimo Gomez
- Claudio Santamaria
- Marco D'Amore
- Sara Serraiocco
- Ivan Cappiello
- Marino Guarnieri
- Alessandro Rak
- Dario Sansone
- Stefano Consiglio
- Giuseppe Bertolucci
- Selma Jean Dell'Olio
- Marco Ferreri
- Mario Sesti
- Paolo Villaggio
- Ai Weiwei
- Darren Aronofsky
- Jennifer Lawrence
- Javier Bardem
- Guillermo del Toro
- Damien Manivel
- Stephen Frears
- Judi Dench
- Ali Fazal
- Eddie Izzard
- Penelope Cruz
- Adriano Giannini
- Valeria Golino
- Abel Ferrara
- William Friedkin
- Jane Fonda
- Robert Redford
- Ritesh Batra
- Kent Haruf
- Errol Morris
- Peter Sarsgaard
- Molly Parker
- Pietro Marcello
- Franco Maresco
- Luca Marinelli
- Letizia Battaglia
- Ciccio Mira
- Francesco Di Leva
- Massimiliano Gallo
- Roberto De Francesco
- Eduardo De Filippo
- James Gray
- Brad Pitt
- Tommy Lee Jones
- Ruth Negga
- Liv Tyler
- Todd Phillips
- Joaquin Phoenix
- Robert De Niro
- Roman Polanski
- Pablo Larraín
- Steven Soderbergh
- Meryl Streep
- Gary Oldman
- Lorenzo Mattotti
- Chiara Ferragni
- Elisa Amoruso
- Haifa Al-Mansour
- Stefano Sollima
- Paolo Sorrentino
- Lucrecia Martel
- Mikhail Khodorkovsky
- Louis Garrel
- Jean Dujardin
- Emmanuelle Seigner
- Noah Baumbach
- Scarlett Johansson
- Adam Driver
- Laura Dern
- Alan Alda
- Ray Liotta
- Antonio Banderas
- Jeffrey Wright
- Matthias Schoenarts
- David Michod
- Timothée Chalamet
- Joel Edgerton
- Sean Harris
- Ben Mendelsohn
- Robert Pattinson
- Lily-Rose Depp
- Elio Germano
- Chiara Lagani
Institutions
- Venice International Film Festival
- La Biennale di Venezia
- HBO Max
- Artribune
- Netflix
- Venice Film Festival
- Mostra del Cinema di Venezia
- Festival de Cannes
- Toronto Film Festival
- Sky
- Cattleya
- Wildside
- Giornate degli Autori
- Riccione Teatro
Locations
- Venice
- Italy
- Lido
- Buenos Aires
- Argentina
- Lido di Venezia
- Cannes
- France
- Middle East
- United States
- Saudi Arabia
- Lazzaretto Vecchio
- Riccione
- Panama City