Venice Fest 2022: 79th Edition is Full of Oscar Hopefuls 

Venice 2022: 79th Edition is Full of Oscar Hopefuls

‘Bardo,’ ‘Bones & All,’ ‘The Son,’ ‘Tár,’ ‘The Whale’ and ‘White Noise’ are some of the Oscar buzzy titles headed to the Lido fest, which runs August 31 to September 10.

 

The Venice Film Fest, which launches the fall film fest–and the Oscar season–has always drawn plenty of Oscar hopefuls.

Over the past decade, 4 of the 10 eventual best picture winners — BirdmanSpotlightThe Shape of Water and Nomadland — began on the Lido, just like plenty of other eventual nominees and winners.

But the lineup for the 79th edition of the world’s oldest film festival–which will run August 31-Sept. 10–is one of its strongest in terms of Oscar hopefuls.

But this is not a problem for Venice, which last year unveiled The Power of the Dog and The Hand of God (the former earned the best director prize and the latter was nominated for best international feature).

This year, Netflix has allocated four of its 23 competition slots for films from the streamer.

Venice opens with White Noise, the latest work of Noah Baumbach, who debuted his last film, Marriage Story (also a Netflix title), at the fest (Laura Dern wound up winning the best supporting actress Oscar). The Adam Driver/Greta Gerwig-starrer is strong enough that the New York Film Festival will open with the project, too.

Netflix also comes to Venice with BardoAlejandro G. Iñárritu’s first feature since The Revenant, which brought him his second best director Oscar (just a year after he won his first for the aforementioned Birdman);

Andrew Dominik’s Blonde, which is said to feature a knockout turn by Ana de Armas as Marilyn Monroe;

Romain Gavras’ French-language Athena.

Oscar-buzzed competition titles include:

Focus’ Tár, which stars Oscar winner Cate Blanchett and is the first feature directed by Todd Field since Little Children 16 years ago;

Florian Zeller’s follow-up to The Father, for which Anthony Hopkins won the best actor Oscar, The Son, which stars Hugh Jackman and, like the earlier film, is being handled by Sony Classics;

A24’s The Whale, which is said to be a strong comeback vehicle for Brendan Fraser and was helmed by Darren Aronofsky, who previously brought eventual Oscar nominee The Wrestler and Oscar winner Black Swan to the fest;

UAR’s Bones & All, which reunites Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino with his Call Me By Your Name star Timothee Chalamet;

Martin McDonagh’s Colin Farrell/Brendan Gleeson two-hander The Banshees of Inisherin, which Searchlight hopes will follow a similar trajectory to McDonagh’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, which premiered at the fest and wound up bagging two acting Oscars;

and All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, a Neon documentary feature from Citizenfour Oscar winner Laura Poitras.