Noah Baumbach, Darren Aronofsky, Luca Guadagnino… Venice Film Festival reveals the 2022 lineup

The prestigious Venice International Film Festival has just revealed the lineup for its 79^th edition. This year, the Honorary Golden Lion will be awarded to the iconic French actress Catherine Deneuve for her entire career. From August 31^st to September 10^th, big names of the cinema industry like Penelope Cruz, Adam Driver, or Chloe Sevigny, will gather at the Lido in Venice for what promises to be an intense edition. The international jury, chaired by American actress Julianne Moore, will have the difficult task of choosing the winner. Last year’s winner was director Audrey Diwan with her film L’évènement (2021), based on Annie Ernaux’s book of the same name, about a young woman having a clandestine abortion in France in the 1960s.

 

This 79^th edition features some of the most anticipated films of the year. The festival opens with Noah Baumbach’s latest feature White Noise, based on Don DeLillo’s 1985 novel of the same name. This satirical, absurd, horrific, and moving portrait of an American family forced to move as a toxic cloud threaten their town, stars American actor Adam Driver, as well as actress and director Greta Gerwig, who happens to be Baumbach’s life partner. French director Alice Diop, who already won a César with her short film Vers la tendresse (2016), will represent France with her first feature film Saint Omer. The storyline follows the trial of Laurence Coly at the Saint-Omer criminal court, under the watchful eye of a young novelist named Rama. The great American director Darren Aronofsky takes part of the competition with his new film The Whale, which runs through the story of a friendship between a young teenager and a morbidly obese man living like a hermit in his Idaho hometown. The highly-anticipated adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’ novel Blonde about the life of Marilyn Monroe, directed by the Australian and New Zealander Andrew Dominik, will compete alongside L’immensità, a variation on falling in and out of love in Rome in the 1970s, by the Italian director Emanuele Crialese starring Spanish actress Penelope Cruz. Luca Guadagnino, the Italian director behind Suspiria (2018) and Call Me By Your Name (2017), gathers Timothée Chalamet and Chloë Sevigny on Bones & All, a romantic and cannibalistic horror odyssey about a young woman’s quest to find her father. American director and actress Olivia Wilde will present her next film Don’t Worry Darling, which tells the story of a couple, played by Harry Styles and Florence Pugh, entering an ideal community with deceptive appearances in the 1950s. One of the pleasant surprises among the features out of competition is Pearl, American horror filmmaker Ti West’s latest film, co-written with British model and actress Mia Goth. Co-produced by A24 which also produced the series Euphoria, this slasher tells the story of a young girl (Mia Goth) ready to do anything for fame.

 

Full lineup of the 79^th Venice International Film Festival:

 

Competition
White Noise – Noah Baumbauch (Opening film)
Il Signore Delle Formiche – Gianni Amelio
The Whale –  Darren Aronofsky
L’immensità –  Emanuel Crialese
Saint Omer – Alice Diop
Blonde –  Andrew Dominik
Tár – Todd Field
Love Life – Koji Fukada
Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths – Alejandro G. Iñárritu
Athena – Romain Gavras
Bones and All – Luca Guadagnino
The Eternal Daughter – Joanna Hogg
Beyond the Wall – Vahid Jalilvand
The Banshees of Inisherin – Martin McDonagh
Argentina, 1985 – Santiago Mitre
Chiara – Susanna Nicchiarelli
Monica – Andrea Pallaoro
No Bears – Jafar Panahi
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed – Laura Poitras
A Couple – Frederick Wiseman
The Son – Florian Zeller
Our Ties – Roschdy Zem
Other People’s Children – Rebecca Zlotowski

 

Out of Competition — Fiction
The Hanging Sun – Francesco Carrozzini (Closing film)
When the Waves Are Gone – Lav Diaz
Living – Oliver Hermanus
Dead for a Dollar – Walter Hill
Call of God – Kim Ki-duk
Dreamin’ Wild – Bill Pohlad
Master Gardener – Paul Schrader
Drought – Paolo Virzi
Pearl – Ti West
Don’t Worry Darling – Olivia Wilde

 

Out of Competition — Nonfiction
Freedom on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom – Evgeny Afineevsky
The Matchmaker – Benedetta Argentieri
Gli Ultimi Giorni Dell’Umanita – Enrico Ghezzi and Alessandro Gagliardo
A Compassionate Spy – Steve James
Music for Black Pigeons – Jorgen Leth and Andreas Koefoed
The Kiev Trial – Sergei Loznitsa
In Viaggio – Gianfranco Rosi
Bobi Wine Ghetto President – Christopher Sharp and Moses Bwayo
Nuclear – Oliver Stone

 

Out of Competition – Short Films
Maid – Lucretia Martel
A guerra finite – Simone Massi
In quanto a noi – Somine Massi
Look at Me – Sally Potter

 

Out of Competition — TV Series
The Kingdom Exodus – Lars von Trier
Copenhagen Cowboys – Nicolas Winding Refn

 

Horizons
Princess – Roberto De Paolis
Victim – Michal Blasko
On the Fringe – Juan Diego Botto
Trenque Lauquen – Laura Citarella
Vera – Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel
Innocence – Guy Davidi
Blanquita – Fernando Guzzoni
Pour La France – Rachid Hami
A Man – Kei Ishikawa
Bread And Salt – Damian Kocur
Luxembourg, Luxembourg – Antonio Lukich
Ti Mangio Il Cuore – Pippo Mezzapesa
To the North – Mihai Mincan
Autobiography – Makbul Mubarak
La Syndicaliste – Jean-Paul Salomé
World War III – Houman Seyedi
The Happiest Man in the World – Teona Strugar Mitevska
The Bride – Sergio Tréfaut

 

Horizons Extra
Origin of Evil – Sebastien Mariner (Opening film)
Hanging Gardens – Ahmed Yassin Al Daradji
Amanda – Carolina Cavalli
Zapatos Rojos – Carlos Eichelmann Kaiser
Nezhou – Soudade Kaadan
Notte Fantasma – Fulvio Risuleo
Without Her – Arian Vazirdaftari
Valeria Is Getting Married – Michael Vinik
Goliath – Adilkhan Yerzhanov

 

Venice Classics – Non-Fiction
Ragtag – Giuseppe Boccassini
Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy – Nancy Buirski
Fragments of Paradise – KD Davison
Franco Zeffirelli, conformista ribelle – Anselma Dell’Olio
Jerry Schatzberg, portrait paysage – Pierre Filmon
Godard seul le cinéma – Cyril Leuthy
The Ghost of Richard Harris – Adrian Sibley
Bonnie – Simon Wallon
Sergio Leone – L’italiano che inventò l’America – Francesco Zippel
 

Biennale College Cinema
Come le tartarughe – Monica Dugo
Banu – Tahmina Rafaella
Mountain Onion – Eldar Shibanov
Palimpsest – Hanna Västinsalo
 

Venice Immersive VR – Out of Competition
Elele – Sjoerd van Acker
Mono – Chiara Troisi
Chroma 11 – Tsang Tsui-Shan