76th Venice Film Festival: Joker, Polanski, and Italian Directors in Competition

The 76th Venice International Film Festival runs from August 28 to September 7, 2019, at the Lido. Director Alberto Barbera emphasizes that films choose festivals, not the other way around, dismissing direct competition with Cannes. The lineup features a strong historical focus, diverse countries and languages, and a distinctive Italian presence. Three Italian directors with surnames starting with 'M' compete: Pietro Marcello's 'Martin Eden' (starring Luca Marinelli, based on Jack London's novel), Franco Maresco's 'La mafia non è più quella di una volta' (with photographer Letizia Battaglia and Ciccio Mira), and Mario Martone's 'Il sindaco del rione Sanità' (adapting Eduardo De Filippo, starring Francesco Di Leva). High-profile international entries include James Gray's 'Ad Astra' (Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones), Todd Phillips' 'Joker' (Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro), Roman Polanski's 'J'Accuse' (on the Dreyfus affair), Pablo Larraín's 'Ema' (Gael García Bernal), and Steven Soderbergh's 'The Laundromat' (Meryl Streep, Gary Oldman, on the Panama Papers). Special highlights: a new festival visual and theme by Lorenzo Mattotti, the documentary 'Chiara Ferragni – Unposted' by Elisa Amoruso, Haifa Al-Mansour's 'The Perfect Candidate', and TV series 'ZeroZeroZero' (Stefano Sollima) and 'The New Pope' (Paolo Sorrentino) presented by Sky.