Angelina Jolie got her flowers. Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson went wild. And studios and streamers got busy playing "let's make a deal."
Angelina Jolie in tears during 'Maria' ovation at Venice Film Festival
The Venice Film Festival, which kicked off on August 28, hasn’t been short on drama, even if it has been unexpectedly busy on TV. In true glamorous style, this year’s celebration of movies that revolves around excess, has seen more big box office sales, on-screen sex, politics (on and off the red carpet) and movie star moments than ever before. In addition to Jolie and Kidman, A-listers like “The Order” star Jude Law and the “Wolfs” duo George Clooney and Brad Pitt flashed megawatt smiles at their film premieres. There are still many more headline-grabbing events to come, but as the festival reaches its midpoint, it’s already shaping up to be one of the most consistent in recent memory.
TV Crashes the LidoVenice is an essential stop for films hoping to generate Oscar heat, but this year the festival is raising the profiles of some of its 2025 Emmy contenders. The Venice lineup was packed with auteur directors and movie stars dipping their toes in the small-screen waters. Chief among them was Alfonso Cuarón’s erotically charged psychological thriller “Disclaimer,” for Apple TV+, starring Cate Blanchett as a documentary filmmaker whose past comes back to haunt her. The steamy first four episodes opened to critical acclaim on the festival’s second day, earning a five-minute standing ovation.
Cuarón isn’t the only filmmaker to make the leap to episodic entertainment. He was joined by fellow Oscar winner Thomas Vinterberg, who unveiled the climate-change drama “Families Like Ours,” his first project since “Another Round.” Meanwhile, Joe Wright brought things closer to home with “M. Son of the Century,” his biopic about Benito Mussolini, Italy’s infamous wartime dictator. The move to television has given Cuarón, Vinterberg and Wright more space to realize their epic visions, but it’s also a sign of the greater freedom and financing available there at a time when the film industry is in retreat.
