77th Venice Film Festival Lineup

After SXSW, Locarno, Cannes, Telluride and countless others all called it quits this year, the oldest film festival in the world is moving valiantly ahead with its plans to hold a physical, “normal” edition despite the ongoing global pandemic. And today they announced the films that will unspool on the Lido five weeks from now:

• Competition

In Between Dying (Hilal Baydarov)

Le Sorelle Macaluso (Emma Dante)

The World to Come (Mona Fastvold)

Nuevo Orden (Michel Franco)

Lovers (Nicole Garcia)

Laila in Haifa (Amos Gitai)

Dear Comrades (Andrei Konchalovsky)

Wife of a Spy (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)

Sun Children (Majid Majidi)

Pieces of a Woman (Kornel Mundruczo)

Miss Marx (Susanna Nicchiarelli)

Padrenostro (Claudio Noce)

Notturno (Gianfranco Rosi)

Never Gonna Snow Again (Malgorzata Szumowska)

The Disciple (Chaitanya Tamhane)

And Tomorrow the Entire World (Julia Von Heinz)

Quo Vadis, Aida? (Jasmila Zbanic)

Nomadland (Chloé Zhao)

• Out of Competition

Sportin Life (Abel Ferrara)

Greta (Nathan Grossman)

Crazy, not Insane (Alex Gibney)

Salvatore – Shoemaker of Dreams (Luca Guadagnino)

Final Account (Luke Holland)

La Verità su La Dolce Vita (Giuseppe Pedersoli)

Molecole (Andrea Segre)

Narciso em Ferias (Renato Terra & Ricardo Calil)

Paolo Conte, Via con Me (Giorgio Verdelli)

Hopper/Welles (Orson Welles)

City Hall (Frederick Wiseman)

Lasciami Andare (Stefano Mordini)

Mandiblues (Quentin Dupieux)

Love After Love (Ann Hui)

Assandira (Salvatore Mereu)

The Duke (Roger Michell)

Night in Paradise (Park Hoon-Jung)

Mosquito State (Filip Jan Rymsza)

30 Monedas (Alex de La Iglesia)

Princesse Europe (Camille Lotteau)

Omelia Contadina (Alice Rohrwacher)

• Orizzonti

Mila (Apples) (Christos Nikou)

La Troisieme Guerre (Giovanni Aloi)

Milestone (Ivan Ayi)

The Wasteland (Ahmad Bahrami)

The Man Who Sold his Skin (Kaouther Ben Hania)

I Predatori (Pietro Castellitto)

Mainstream (Gia Coppola)

Genus Pan (Lav Diaz)

Zanka Contact (Ismael El Iraki)

Guerra e Pace (Martina Parenti & Massimo D’Anolfi)

La Nuit Des Rois (Philippe Lacote)

The Furnace (Roderick MacKay)

Careless Crime (Shahram Mokri)

Gaza Mon Amour (Tarzan & Arab Nasser)

Selva Tragica (Yulene Olaizola)

Nowhere Special (Uberto Pasolini)

Listen (Ana Rocha De Sousa)

The Best is Yet to Come (Wang Jing)

Yellow Cat (Adilkhan Yerzhanov)

Looking though this lineup, a couple of things stood out. First of all, Hollywood has a significantly trimmed-down presence. Over the course of the last decade, Venice has established itself as a freakishly reliable platform to launch films with Oscar aspirations. However, all the factors that have worked in its favor, including sheer timing and the kind of powerful buzz offered by the singularly glamorous festival setting are compromised this year. American talents are unlikely to attend due to travel restrictions, so there won’t be photos of Lady Gaga lounging on vaporettos or killing that mile-long red carpet going around the world. Also the Oscars have been postponed, extending the post-Venice period to over six months, which might be too ambitious for any awards campaigns. Considering the famously obscene costs related to staging premieres on the Lido, it’s not surprising that major studios are saving their JOKER’s and LA LA LAND’s for another, potentially more cost-efficient day.

Also conspicuous is how presumed Cannes opt-out’s have not swarmed to Venice as a fallback. We knew, of course, that such inherently Cannes titles like ANNETTE or BENEDETTA were always going to wait for the grand return to the Croisette in 2021. But what about Mia Hansen-Løve’s BERGMAN ISLAND? Sofia Coppola’s ON THE ROCKS? Or, even more incredibly, Italian native Nanni Moretti’s THREE FLOORS? The fact that so few of the films we suspected would have made the Cannes 2020 official selection ended up in Venice suggests that, instead of grabbing the next sure thing, producers the world over are still placing bets as they try to figure out the strange new festival landscape in these unprecedented times. Whether or not this choice will pay off is, at this stage, anyone’s guess.

Of course, we don’t go to film festivals for the Oscar baits or the politics. We’re there to appreciate a hopefully thoughtfully curated selection that showcases the best and the promising in the world of cinema. In that sense, there’s plenty to salivate over or be curious about in this lineup. Personally I’m excited for Golden Lion/Golden Bear double winner Gianfranco Rosi’s latest wartime documentary NOTTURNO, the always unpredictable French auteur Quentin Dupieux’s fantastical comedy MANDIBLUES, German director Julia Von Heinz’s political drama about the radicalized left AND TOMORROW THE ENTIRE WORLD, and obviously Chloé Zhao’s take on the American road movie NOMADLAND starring Frances McDormand. On paper this one doesn’t exactly scream Oscar! to me, but the fact that Fox Searchlight is putting it out there so early shows great confidence. Will it be the first runaway hit of this fall festival season?

The 77^th Venice film Festival runs Sep. 2-12. The competition jury is chaired by two-time Oscar winner Cate Blanchett.