Adam Driver and the cast of Michael Mann’s Ferrari revved up the Venice Film Festival on Thursday, giving the Bienalle much-needed boost of star power for one of this year’s most hotly-anticipated films.

Driver plays the legendary Italian car maker Enzo Ferrari in the new biopic, which co-stars Penélope Cruz as his wife Laura Ferrari and Shailene Woodley as his lover Lina Lardi. The drama, which will have its world premiere in Venice tonight, depicts a pivotal point in Ferrari’s life and in the history of his car company. Jack O’Connell and Patrick Dempsey co-star as Italian racers.

Driver and Mann alternated between discussing the film and talking about the dual strikes that, here in Venice, are dominating discussion among industry attendees. Ferrari received an interim agreement waiver from SAG-AFTRA to allow Driver and co-star Dempsey to attend Venice to promote the movie. Neon will release the film domestically, with planned Xmas release.

One of the conditions of the waiver is that distributors comply with SAG-AFTRA demands, including on the subject of subscription revenue and residuals, issues that the studios and streamers have rejected in negotiations with the union.

“Why is it that a smaller distribution company like Neon or STX International can meet the dream demands of what SAG is asking for in this pre-negotiation but a big company like Netflix and Amazon can’t?,” Driver asked. “Every time people from SAG go and support a movie that has agreed to these terms — the interim agreement — it just makes it more obvious that these people are willing to support the people that they collaborate with and the others are not. So when this opportunity came up, it seemed like — understanding the interim agreement — a no-brainer for all of these reasons of why you want to support your union.”

Mann made it clear that “individually and collectively we all stand in total solidarity with SAG and the writers guild strike as well.”

Returning to the subject of the movie, Mann said he felt compelled to tell Ferrari’s story beccuase it found it “profoundly human. When a character is as dynamic and operatic as he is, the more specifically you get into the man, the more universal he becomes.” He said the former race car driver turned pioneering auto engineer had “many parts of him [that were] in opposition to each other [and that] kind of resonated with me as the way life is. So either it’s melodramatic or profound or sad — or because I’m as oppositional as he is, I don’t know. But that what it was.”