Ioncinema

With a bit of rebranding (now sounds like a tennis ATP tour event) the Venice Open section which houses the non comp non-fiction films, also has a firm eleven fiction films with a lot of big name auteurs in not necessarily lesser films but items that are a better fit without a run at the Golden Lion. This year we find the likes of Gianni Amelio (No Pain), Mario Martone (Trick), Kornél Mundruczó (Place to Be), Sabu (Arrested Memory) and Paul Schrader (The Basics of Philosophy). In the Venice Spotlight section (berthed from the Orrizonti section) we find items that need to be profiled but perhaps aren’t a fit elsewhere.… Read the rest

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This is not hyperbole. The Venice Film Festival have unveiled perhaps the most stacked Out-of-Competition Non-Fiction line-up in decades. It’s a who’s who list of some of the best working docu filmmakers in the business – they’re all shoring up in 2026 and some with punishing (in the context of a film festival) runtimes. Oscar winning legend Barbara Kopple brings us Union Town – we don’t even need to put a synopsis here to understand her focus. The Truffle Hunters pairing of Gregory Kershaw and Michael Dweck go to the vineyards of Burgundy, a community bound by earth and ritual passes down its greatest inheritance, the art of pleasure.… Read the rest

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Cannes have the Un Certain Regard section, and Venice has the Orizzonti. While we do find some fresh new voices from the nineteen films selected we also find fresh new works from the likes of India’s Anuparna Roy, Greece’s Jacqueline Lentzou, Bangladeshi’s Rubaiyat Hossain, Thailand’s Phuttiphong Aroonpheng and the United States of America in Robert Greene.

Like Iranian filmmaker Ali Asgari, Anuparna Roy will make it two films in two back to back Venice editions. She won the Best Director award last year for Songs of Forgotten Trees, now she brings Lovers In The Blue Night which is set in Mumbai, the film follows four migrants – a gay husband, his wife working in a bar, a thief, and a pimp.… Read the rest

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As we had mentioned in our predictions piece over the weekend, the competition skews heavily dude-centric this year, with May El-Toukhy‘s Woman Unknown being the only female-directed entry among twenty films, while acquisition prospects are boosted by high-profile titles such as Casey Affleck‘s Company and Werner Herzog‘s Bucking Fastard. Names that were circulating as Lido potentials will have other plans: Mike Leigh, Andrew Haigh, and Simon Stone are heading to Telluride before Toronto, Tom McCarthy and Fernando Meirelles are currently absent, Mexican auteurs Michel Franco and Carlos Reygadas might be looking at the Berlinale next year, and as expected by several awardage pundits the likes of Behemoth!… Read the rest

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Atomic Age and Spirit of Ecstasy‘s Héléna Klotz is getting ready to launch production on her third feature film. Cineuropa reports that French filmmaker is moving into production next month on Celles qui parlaient tout le temps (aka The Girls Who Wouldn’t Stop Talking) and the youth-orientated Gina Jimenez will be leading the cast comprised of Taïs Madalena, Salomé Boulven, Ruben Correa and Cédric Appietto. Klotz wrote the project with Nicolas Laquerrière and Mehdi Ouahab with Jacques Audiard aiding the screenplay as well. Colin Lévêque is the cinematographer here. Les Films du Bélier’s Justin Taurand is producing. The timeline sets this as a Cannes submission.… Read the rest

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From yesterday’s TIFF Platform section we now move to two dozen film offerings that populate the Discovery programme and at the top of the list we have the opening film titled Stuffed by Theo Rhys starring Jodie Comer and Harry Melling in what the fest calls the year’s most original, hilarious, and unexpectedly heartfelt romance, where love, death, and taxidermy collide. Six films are international premieres (it appears that only Anna Foglietta‘s A Common Story is coming from Venice) and naturally the section is loaded in world premieres. Among the standout names we find Alexandra Pechman‘s directorial debut to be Magazine (she had the high profiled package of The Murderous Miss Highsmith on the docket a couple of years back) which is about a young intern gets thrown into the intoxicating power dynamics of a prestigious literary magazine in New York.… Read the rest

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Hungarian filmmaker Lili Horvát, actress-turned filmmaker Nathalia Acevedo and veteran French filmmaker Robert Guédiguian are among the ten in the female-centric competition line-up. Horvát’s highly anticipated My Notes on Mars (we recently profiled the film) starring Mackenzie Davis and Rupert Friend will open the section in this sci-fi romance. The closing night slot also belongs to the larger genre category item in Lèa Domenach’s Peau d’homme. Re-teaming with Catherine Deneuve (2023’s Bernadette), this sophomore feature is based on the graphic novel with Claire Pommet and Karin Viard also in the mix.

In one of our most anticipated directorial debuts of the year we find Nathalia Acevedo (from Carlos Reygadas’s Post Tenebras Lux fame) who delivers Salón De Bellezza with Sam Louwyck and Erwan Kepoa Falé toplining.… Read the rest

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Last week, Netflix dropped that they were back in the Ava DuVernay business when it was announced that her new docu would open sometime this year….now the New York Film Festival folks announce that 14th will close the fest (October 9th) — and what is neat is that the fest hosted the world premiere of DuVernay’s 13th exactly a decade ago. Since then, an alarming number of our democratic norms and principles have eroded, further disenfranchising Black Americans. In response to our distressing new reality, DuVernay has created a thrillingly expansive sequel of sorts, which passionately and persuasively details how the tenets of the 14th Amendment, ratified post–Civil War, are now under systematic attack.… Read the rest

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Earlier this year, the Academy Awards announced that the winner of TIFF’s Platform Award—alongside major prizes from other leading international festivals—would automatically qualify for consideration in the Best International Feature Film category at the Oscars. A significant evolution for a section that, just a decade ago, showcased titles such as Pablo Larraín’s Jackie, William Oldroyd’s Lady Macbeth, and Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight, Platform continues to sharpen its identity as a discovery space, not interested in name names that would normally compete for a Golden Bear, Palme d’Or or Golden Lion. This year, the programming team is doubling down on its original mission, returning with a dozen selections and also new this year: a five-member jury, reviving a format TIFF experimented with in the past before returning to the traditional three-person panel.… Read the rest

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Anton Corbijn’s A Talent for Murder, Chris Rock’s Misty Green and Florian Zeller’s Bunker will be receiving major showcases as they were selected as part of the 2026 Gala Presentations. Yan Lanouette Turgeon’s Villeneuve: The Rise of a Legend has been selected as the closing night film. With Florian Zeller’s Bunker receiving North American premiere status means it will be a competiton item for the Golden Lion.

World Premiere
A Talent for Murder | Anton Corbijn | United Kingdom, Italy
Always Lalisa | Sue Kim | USA
Babies | Lauren Miller Rogen | USA
Diary of a Mad Old Man | Wayne Wang | USA
Evil Genius | Courteney Cox | USA
Girl Group | Rebel Wilson | United Kingdom
Man in Motion: The Rick Hansen Story | Adrian Buitenhuis | Canada
Misty Green | Chris Rock | USA
Onwards and Sideways | John Madden | United Kingdom
Pretenders | Joss Crowley | United Kingdom
Run Terry Run | Sean Menard | Canada
The Life and Deaths of Wilson Shedd | Tim Blake Nelson | USA
Up Against It | Trudie Styler | United Kingdom
Villeneuve: The Rise of a Legend | Yan Lanouette Turgeon | Canada (Closing Night Film)

North American Premiere
All About Corinne | Marc Fitoussi | France
Atonement | Reed Van Dyk | USA
Bunker | Florian Zeller | France, Spain

International Premiere
Spirit Guardians: The Last Secret of the First Emperor | Nguyen Phan Quang Binh | Vietnam

Canadian Premiere
Tenzing | Jennifer Peedom | USA, Australia
The Only Living Pickpocket in New York | Noah Segan | USA… Read the rest

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