Upstart New York distributor 1-2 Special has added another indie gem to its fast-growing slate, picking up all rights in North America to Mark Jenkin’s Rose of Nevada, one of the highlights of this year’s Venice Film Festival.
George MacKay and Callum Turner star in the eerie drama, playing fishermen in a remote village in Cornwall who board a mysterious ship that appears to be caught in a time loop. Jenkin’s third feature, following the acclaimed dramas Bait (winner of 2020 BAFTAs for outstanding debut and outstanding British film) and Enys Men (which took best sound at the 2023 British Independent Film Awards), Rose of Nevada premiered in Venice in the Horizons sidebar and had its North American debut in Toronto.
Typical for Jenkin, Rose of Nevada was shot on 16mm cameras using a wind-up Bolex with all sound constructed in post-production, with Jenkin acting as writer, director, cinematographer, and editor.
1-2 Special will release the film in theaters next year.
Launched by former Sideshow executive Jason Hellerstein in February, with backing from a group of private investors led by Alex Lo’s Cinema Inutile, 1-2 Special is one a pack of new theatrical-first distributors looking to carve out a space in the domestic market.
The company has been an active buyer on the festival circuit this year, snatching up Radu Jude’s Berlin Silver Bear winner Kontinental ‘25 and his Locarno premiere Dracula; Harris Dickinson’s Cannes prize-winning directorial debut Urchin, Christian Petzold’s Directors’ Fortnight premiere Miroirs No. 3, and Simón Mesa Soto’s Un Certain Regard Jury Prize winner A Poet; Ildikó Enyedi’s Venice prize-winner Silent Friend with Tony Leung and Léa Seydoux, and Pete Ohs’ Toronto premiere Erupcja featuring Charli xcx.
1-2 Special negotiated the Rose of Nevada deal with Protagonist Pictures, who are handling world rights on behalf of the filmmakers.
The Golden Globe winner recently opened up about the “uncomfortable conversation” she had with an Italian journalist about the Me Too and Black Lives Matter movements in Hollywood, noting that she “didn’t really pay too much attention” to the fan response.
“I think I’m less online than I used to be,” she said at a New York Film Festival press conference on Friday, according to People. “So I didn’t really, to be completely honest — and I love to lie, I make money lying. But yeah, I didn’t really pay too much attention.”
Edebiri added, “But, I mean, I think it was just a very human moment. And I think in a strange way, uncomfortable conversation, it’s kind of one of the many things our film is about. So shout out to tie-ins!”
In Luca Guadagnino‘s After the Hunt, premiering Oct. 10 in theaters, college professor Alma Olsson (Julia Roberts) finds herself at a complicated crossroads when her prized pupil Maggie Price (Edebiri) accuses her colleague Henrik Gibson (Andrew Garfield) of sexual assault, threatening to expose a dark secret from her own past.
Despite being awkwardly excluded from a question by Italian journalist Federica Polidoro about what was “lost during the politically correct era” in Hollywood now that the Me Too and Black Lives Matter movements supposedly “are done,” Edebiri clarified that the “work isn’t finished at all.”
“Yeah, I know that that’s not for me, and I don’t know if it’s purposeful it’s not for me, but I just am curious,” said Edebiri after the ArtsLife TV reporter clarified her question was only for co-stars Roberts and Garfield during an interview promoting After the Hunt.
One fan on X praised Edebiri for handling the moment “with poise and grace,” as another called out Polidoro for “being unprofessional.”
Polidoro has since responded to the backlash, doubling down and defending herself against alleged online attacks. “I will not tolerate or accept defamatory or violent language, and I reserve the right to seek legal protection against those who, in recent days, have chosen to hide behind the digital mob to insult and attack me instead of seeking a civil and constructive discussion,” she wrote.
A rushed follow-through leaves the film’s mere 105 minutes feeling somewhat purposeless in the grand scheme of things. Courtesy Venice Film Festival
There’s something to be said about movies that are just good enough, especially those that refashion real events into cinematic junk food. It is, however, hard not to be disappointed when one such work comes from Gus Van Sant, which makes Dead Man’s Wire a frustrating experience despite its climactic vigor. The tale of a disgruntled Hoosier who takes a rich man hostage in 1977, the film re-creates the lengthy standoff in immense visual detail but rarely probes beneath the surface of its colorful characters and relegates any sense of tension or intrigue to its climactic scenes.
Van Sant has made several biopics (or pseudo-biopics) involving American gun violence, from the Palme d’Or-winning school shooter drama Elephant (2003) to the Oscar-winning gay rights drama Milk (2008). After decades of doing so, any artist is likely to lose their fascination with the subject, given how it’s ground to a standstill politically. And yet, the director presses on despite this, crafting a film where the threat of pulling a trigger is rarely riveting and even verges on doltish at times, as troubled Indianapolis resident Tony Kiritsis (Bill Skarsgård) tethers a wire to himself, his shotgun, and his wealthy would-be victim Richard Hall (Dacre Montgomery), in a kind of janky proto-Saw trap set to go off if the police intervene. But while the drama seldom feels zealous or threatening, it’s underscored by disappointment and disillusionment, the kind that has driven the weary Kiritsis to hold Hall at gunpoint.
DEAD MAN’S WIRE ★★1/2 (2.5/4 stars) Directed by: Gus Van Sant Written by: Austin Kolodney Starring: Bill Skarsgård, Dacre Montgomery, Colman Domingo, Al Pacino, Cary Elwes, Myha’la Running time: 105 mins.
Whatever Van Sant’s feelings about this kind of subject matter may have once been, he appears to now translate them through a lens of sheer exhaustion. “Here,” the movie gestures wearily. “Another one of these. Pew pew.” It is, on one hand, fascinating to watch a film whose director seems fed up with his own characters and with the very premise of being driven to gun violence while fashioning oneself into a martyr. And yet, Van Sant’s Taxi Driver-esque tale (by way of Fargo; his delusional anti-hero is surprisingly polite) lives in the body of a based-on-real-events saga without embodying the reality from which it draws.
Kiritsis, like Van Sant, is methodical, and the character responds to each of his plans going awry with a scrappy backup ploy (and a backup to each backup). This results in him kidnapping Hall from the fancy offices of his family mortgage company instead of his elderly father (an underutilized Al Pacino), who happens to be on vacation, and taking Hall to his cramped apartment as a number of policemen—with whom he happens to be friends—roll their eyes while in pursuit. Kiritsis’ motives are gradually revealed, and his demands involve apologies and restitution. His public declarations over the TV and radio establish how heroically he sees himself, so it’s no surprise that he foolishly believes the world to be entirely on his side, to the point that he thinks he’s in no danger of being arrested once things are all said and done.
It’s all very interesting on paper. The oddball case makes you wonder whether a crime so idiosyncratic really transpired, and the performances do a great job of selling the oddity of it all. Skarsgård, although he taps into Kiritsis’ wounded-animal nature and occasional snappiness, is a treat to watch in the moments he dials back and acts completely casually, as though trying to convince Hall he’s approachable despite holding a 12-gauge Winchester to his neck. Montgomery, meanwhile, eschews the usual charisma for which he’s cast and makes himself physically meek and small, embodying a sniveling desperation that, on occasion, makes Kiritsis’ grievances seem worth considering.
However, Van Sant never pushes Dead Man’s Wire in either of these two directions and instead lets it wallow in a casual middle ground. The unfolding action is never farcical enough to make the film satirical or outright funny, but it’s also never imbued with enough historical gravity to truly matter. Snapshot re-creations of known photos and news footage, and the presence of locally popular field reporters and radio hosts (played by Myha’la and Colman Domingo, respectively) seek to clarify the film’s reality, but these characters end up bit players in its opaque dramatic fabric rather than becoming living, breathing people crossing paths with an extraordinary, potentially violent scenario. The bigger picture, the moving pieces, and the various plans and strategies to save Hall never fade into view.
When it comes time for the standoff to end, the questions of how it’ll wrap up, who’ll survive, and which somewhat personable character will be forced to pull the trigger grant Dead Man’s Wire a temporary intensity. This last hurrah isn’t quite “too little too late,” but its rushed follow-through leaves the film’s mere 105 minutes feeling somewhat purposeless in the grand scheme of things. It’s a tale with no purpose beyond letting viewers know, with a bemused cadence, that something quirky once happened in Indianapolis and that it could’ve been much more destructive—and perhaps much more enrapturing—than it really was.
In films like Grizzly Man, Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo, Werner Herzog has been drawn to obsessive men whose hubris tricks them into believing they can tame nature, only to find nature resistant to human control. South African conservation biologist Dr. Steve Boyes is a worthy addition to that canon of driven eccentrics, his background in environmental science never excluding the philosophical and spiritual reflections of an unabashed dreamer.
In Ghost Elephants, Herzog accompanies Boyes to a remote highland plateau in Angola in search of a possibly mythical herd of giant elephants, which turns out to be exactly what you want the peripatetic, eternally curious German iconoclast to be doing.
Ghost Elephants
The Bottom Line
A poetic exploration of human obsession and mysterious nature.
Venue: Venice Film Festival (Out of Competition) Director-writer: Werner Herzog
1 hour 38 minutes
The starting point is the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., where the largest elephant ever recorded is on display in taxidermy form, officially named — with questionable taste — the Fénykövi elephant, after the Hungarian hunter who shot and killed it in 1955. More affectionately, it’s known at the museum as Henry, an 11-ton mammal Boyes believes must have been at least 100 years old when it died.
For a decade, Boyes has pursued his theory that the mega-pachyderm belongs to a subspecies that still exists in an elusive herd wandering the elevated wetlands of Angola, a sparsely inhabited area roughly the size of England and reachable only with great perseverance. According to Boyes, it’s one of the most biodiverse habitats on the planet, and every species that he and his team have discovered there is unique to the area.
The goal of the mission is to obtain DNA from the Angolan elephants and return to the Smithsonian for analysis, hoping to trace a link back to Henry. It’s not entirely clear how Boyes arrived at his theories, but Herzog is more interested in the Sisyphean quest — he likens it to going after the white whale — than the science.
In the characteristically idiosyncratic commentary that has become a signature of his nonfiction work, Herzog muses on Boyes and his ghost elephants: “It doesn’t matter to him if they exist or are a dream. Maybe that’s the future of all animals. To be a dream. To be a memory.”
Punctuating the doc with enchanting underwater footage of elephants splashing around bathing, or with dazzling fast-motion sequences of the enveloping night skies, Herzog tracks the months of preparation for the journey, the long trek through the almost impassable peatlands — first in 4WDs, then on motorcycles for 100 miles and on foot for the last 30 miles from their base camp — and the arrival at their destination.
Their first stop is Namibia, where they sign up indigenous hunter-gatherers of the Kalahari, the San Bushmen. They observe an all-night dance ritual where the master trackers go into a trance state, allowing the spirits of the elephants to enter them.
It quickly becomes clear that Herzog is just as fascinated by the poetic and magical side of the quest as the outcome — probably more so. Being among what’s believed to be the first people on Earth, from whom we are all descended, fires up his imagination but also his droll, whimsical side.
Watching a tribal elder sitting on the cracked ground fixing a stringed instrument while chickens scurry around him, the director chides himself for it but can’t help romanticizing: “I feel it cannot get better than this.” He also notes without mockery that while the ancestral way of life prevails in this egalitarian society, it’s not unusual to see a bushman on a cellphone.
The convoy expands with the addition of Angolan trackers from the Luchazi tribe, known for their extensive knowledge of the ecosystem, particularly around the Okavango River basin. They refer to the expedition’s plateau destination as the “Source of Life.”
They also talk of the legacy of the 27-year Angolan Civil War, during which countless elephants, hippos and other majestic creatures were gunned down for sport or blown up by landmines. Footage from the 1966 Italian documentary Africa Addio, of a herd of elephants being felled by both ground hunters and sharpshooters in helicopters, is distressing to watch.
The final section may prove anticlimactic for some, given the fleeting images captured of elephants believed to have inhabited the highlands for 5,000 years. But there’s enough forensic evidence of them to obtain the required DNA samples, from dung piles or tree markings where they scratch themselves, leaving behind traces of hair. Boyes estimates from one set of markings that the elephant stands at least 11 feet tall.
In his inimitably deadpan, cryptic fashion, Herzog comments: “Steve would have to live with his success.” What comes after the realization of a dream, he seems to be asking. The director maintains a degree of ambivalence about the wild-eyed Boyes and his need to unravel nature’s mysteries. But the kinship of fellow travelers seems apparent in the willingness of both director and subject to think outside a purely scientific frame.
This aspect comes to the fore in a visit to the tribal king of the area, from whom permission must be granted to track the elephants. With lilting cadences, the king shares the origin myth of his Nkangala people, that a small elephant shed its skin while bathing in the river and a woman emerged, who married and procreated with his ancestors. The inference is that beyond just co-existing with the magnificent beast, the tribe are its descendants.
Boyes nods in vigorous agreement with the tribal belief that the disappearance of the elephants would be a harbinger of the disappearance of human life. That lingering note of myth and melancholy typifies the ways in which Ghost Elephants steps outside the boundaries of science-based nature docs. It makes for a fantastic story.
The director’s portrait of Francis Ford Coppola’s creative process is never allowed to probe deeply enough. Courtesy Venice Film Festival
From Leaving Las Vegas director Mike Figgis, Megadoc is a fly-on-the-wall documentary about the making of Megalopolis, Francis Ford Coppola’s white whale production, which he finally released last year. The response to Coppola’s mad utopian epic ranged from baffled to mixed, and while some, like myself, were awestruck by its ambition, there’s no denying that the $120 million self-funded saga makes for an enrapturing curio. However, it’s hard not to wonder if Megadoc is the right film to answer any burning questions, given its own troubles—which become a minor subject too, as Figgis is left with no choice but to turn the lens on himself.
There’s no denying that Megadoc has at least some academic value: it’s the kind of documentary students might watch in a Production 101 class to get a taste of the chaos of big movie sets. This might sound like a backhanded compliment, but as the 77-year-old Figgis narrates in the opening minutes (about the 86-year-old Coppola), he’s never actually seen another director at work. Megadoc is a mood piece and a process piece, shot up close with lo-fi video equipment, but it’s never allowed to probe deeply enough. With jagged cuts mid-scene, several unfolding threads are left feeling incomplete, while the movie’s two leads—Adam Driver and Nathalie Emmanuel—barely feature, which Figgis attributes to their reluctance to be filmed on set. Much like Megalopolis, Megadoc faces challenges while searching for its voice. However, where Coppola succeeds in his pursuit by the end, Figgis does not, despite the movie’s many gestures toward riveting topics.
The documentary not only chronicles the early days of Megalopolis rehearsals—during which Coppola plays theater and improv games, establishing his credo of having fun—but it also flashes back to earlier taped readings and screen tests from two decades ago, during which stars like Uma Thurman and Ryan Gosling were once part of the production. The long road to finally making Megalopolis just about fades into view, but the doc seldom seems to have enough footage to follow a single train of thought.
MEGADOG ★★1/2 (2.5/4 stars) Directed by: Mike Figgis Starring: Francis Ford Coppola, Eleanor Coppola, Adam Driver, Aubrey Plaza, Nathalie Emmanuel, Dustin Hoffman, Giancarlo Esposito, Chloe Fineman, Shia Labeouf, Laurence Fishburne, Jon Voight, Talia Shire, Robert DeNiro Running time: 107 mins.
Figgis, on the occasions that he speaks to the camera, seems acutely aware of his role as a storyteller in search of on-set conflict, which he finds most often in the relationship between the experienced Coppola and the hot-headed former child star Shia LaBeouf, a pair whose respective playful and logistical philosophies make for an awkward fit. LaBeouf references the controversies that have made him persona non grata in Hollywood, and how his precarious employability informs his initially cautious approach. This care is eventually shed, leading to numerous intriguing and hilarious clashes between the duo, but the film either isn’t interested in expounding upon Shia’s life (and the way it informs his mindset) or isn’t able to get the right sound bites. Either way, it comes achingly close to finding its heart and soul in the oddball, pseudo father-son relationship between the director of The Godfather and the star of Nickelodeon’s Even Stevens, and what a joy that would have been. However, the numerous times they end up at loggerheads, with their diametrically opposed approaches to meaning and artistry, end up lost in the shuffle of the doc’s many other concerns.
There are tidbits about budgets, costumes, visual effects and so on, but Figgis’ record is too straightforward and too chronological (often in a literal, day-by-day sense) to capture the fraught process of filmmaking and how its challenges are overcome. Anytime the department heads are seen trying to pull off some practical magic trick, Megadoc seldom establishes what goal they’re working toward, in the form of either concept art or finished footage. Although we’re allowed to glimpse the finished product of certain shots, in the meantime, all we’re left with are scenes of people tinkering and working toward objectives that are rarely clear to even viewers who have seen Megalopolis.
Some interviews with more experienced actors like Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight provide wise insight about Coppola’s process, while relative newcomer Aubrey Plaza forms an amusing bond with the director, based on sarcastic banter. But there’s never enough cohesion behind Megadoc to make it more than just a behind-the-scenes special feature. For a filmmaker like Figgis, whose 2000 four-way split-screen movie Timecode remains a landmark of digital experimentation—it was the first feature made in one take (that too four times over), even though Russian Ark wrongly gets the credit—capturing Coppola at his most wildly experimental ought to feel like a spark of madness burning through the screen. Whether or not it actually instilled these feelings in Figgis is hard to tell, but given Megadoc’s languid unveiling, the mad science on display rarely ends up felt, and is most often observed at a casual and disappointing distance.
The Last Viking, the latest collaboration between Danish writer-director Anders Thomas Jensen and his longtime muses Mads Mikkelsen and Nikolaj Lie Kaas, is a wild, darkly comic fable about brotherhood, identity and the limits of sanity.
The frankly bonkers plot follows two brothers. Kaas plays Anker, a bank robber whose loot is entrusted to his traumatized younger brother Manfred (Mikkelsen). But by the time Kaas is released from prison, Manfred — a former Viking obsessive — has been diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder. He now believes he’s John Lennon. To jog his memory as to where he stored the cash, Kaas decides to find a collection of similarly afflicted patients — ones that think they’re George, Ringo and Paul — and bring the Fab Four back together.
For Mikkelsen and Lie Kaas, who have previously pushed Jensen’s brand of lunatic sincerity in films like Men & Chicken and Riders of Justice, The Last Viking was another chance to dive headfirst into the madness while keeping hold of something real. “The brother story was, I thought, really beautiful,” Mikkelsen notes. “That way we could be allowed to do all the insanity, but we needed these anchors, these moments where they saw each other for who they were.”
The Hollywood Reporter sat down with Mikkelsen and Lie Kaas to talk about why they keep returning to Jensen’s universe, how they found the reality inside these extreme characters, and whether they’re team Beatles or team Abba.
What made you decide to come on to this absolutely nuts movie? What about the story pulled you in?
NIKOLAJ LIE KAAS For me, it was basically the question about identity and how we have to accept that we are different people. We’re in the same community, and we have to coexist with all our differences. I think it’s a great question to raise, and that was the main reason I saw this as a great project. We also talked about the brothers and how they have to accept each other because they have this huge difference from the start.
MADS MIKKELSEN I was attracted to these guys, and because it’s Anders Thomas. This theme of being yourself, as well, but the brother story was, I thought, really beautiful. We enhanced it, made sure it was the heart of the film. That way, we could be allowed to do all the insanity, but we needed these anchors, these moments where [the two brothers] saw each other for who they were.
KAAS Because Anders’ universe is so crazy, full of all these wild personalities, we knew we had to focus on the bond. What is their profound connection? That was where we kept our attention.
You’ve both pushed the limits with Anders Thomas before, in films like Men & Chicken and Riders of Justice.
MIKKELSENWe’ve both gone to the edge of what’s possible with Anders. We might even have crossed it a few times. But it’s a nice place to be — in Anders’ universe, with friends who know how far to go. You feel comfortable reaching for that limit because you know they’ll pull you back if it’s too much. I don’t think I’d do that with any other director.
How did you approach Manfred — a grown man who thinks he’s John Lennon?
MIKKELSENI approached him as a child — a kid seven, eight, nine years old — with the same impulses, the same narcissism, and the same sense of poetry and beauty in places no one else sees. That also makes him very difficult to live with. That informed everything I did, how he moves, how he talks, how he reacts to things. He’s a guy who tends to throw himself out of windows when things don’t go his way.
Mads Mikkelsen and Nikolaj Lie Kaas in The Last Viking.
Courtesy of TrustNordisk
The film touches on identity and even identity politics. How does that discussion play out in Denmark, and how does it connect to the film?
MIKKELSENEverything that comes to Denmark comes five years later, and with a smaller wave. So yes, the discussion is there too. But it hasn’t influenced my life in a big way. It was very important for the media to deal with it constantly for a period. I don’t know if that’s why Anders made the film but, for me, it’s not the main theme. It’s more the “hat” the film is wearing. If you make films about politics — and you just called it “identity politics” — it’s boring. Everything is boring when it’s about politics. It has to be about human beings and their behavior. That’s the heart of a film. Then you can put a political hat on top. But it can’t be the core.
KAASI think the film raises a big question mark about the idea of identity. It doesn’t make a statement. It asks: Can we accept our differences? That is so important. We have to coexist. That’s the main plan for everyone — to find a way, because we all have to be here.
MIKKELSEN Exactly. And Anders also shows how quickly we build walls, because somebody says, “They’re the problem.”
Which Beatle do you self-identify as?
MIKKELSEN Which one is alive? Ringo. I’d be Ringo.
KAAS I’d say the same. He’s a really nice guy; everybody talks about how nice he is. He seems to have the best time.
MIKKELSEN And he’s got no gray hair.
KAAS Exactly. I’d choose Ringo as well.
A major conflict in the film is between Abba and Beatles fans. Are you team Abba or team Beatles?
KAAS You can’t put them up against each other.
MIKKELSEN Exactly — why does there have to be a conflict? They’re great for different things. We grew up with Abba and were proud of our neighbors making music that went global. But in terms of the music itself, that’s really up to a musician to answer.
KAASI love both worlds. You can’t say one is better than the other.
What was the most fun moment on set?
MIKKELSEN The funny thing is, if you play the “straight guy,” as Nikolaj does, then you’re standing next to complete insanity. That’s a hard job, because you’re not part of it. Being in that insanity is easier — you rarely crack up because you’re in that bubble. But being the one looking at it can be absurd.
KAASDefinitely. But honestly, we held it together better on this one. On Men & Chicken, that was tougher. You have to remind yourself that these characters don’t see their world as absurd or comedic. This is reality to them. That’s the most important thing in Anders’ films — to keep it real, even in the midst of insanity.
What makes Anders Thomas Jensen’s films so different?
KAASI don’t think he has a choice, that’s how his mind works. In Denmark, a lot of directors envy the fact that he’s that bold. His storytelling has something of the fable about it. He creates his own realm every time.
MIKKELSEN It’s there even in his first film, Flickering Lights, that poetry was there. He didn’t really get the credit for it — people called it a “boys’ film.” But he’s always been dealing with big subjects: Family, death, life, God, Satan. Enormous things. For him, the only way to tell those stories without being pretentious is to wrap them in insanity. But inside there’s big honesty and big poetry. That’s what makes him unique.
Many of Anders Thomas’ films have been adapted into English. Do you think his work translates well internationally?
KAAS That’s a good question. I’ve seen some of his films received in the U.S., and the approach is completely different. His films tend to be received very differently in different countries. Even Canada receives them differently from the U.S.. And I honestly don’t know how Sweden will take this one.
MIKKELSEN I once accepted an award on his behalf for The Green Butchers. For Best Drama. Now, that film is obviously not a drama. But that’s how they travel sometimes. Anders is also very wordy, and subtitles can only capture maybe 30 percent of it. Those words are very important to his universe. If people still like the film despite missing that layer, then they’re getting something else out of it. But it’s hard to say what.
KAASThat’s why I’m always curious to see what happens abroad. And yes, maybe even a little worried.
MIKKELSEN Especially with Sweden. They’re so close to us, yet sometimes the establishment there interprets things very differently. But I hope they’ll love it.
Speaking of adaptations — Mads, one of your most acclaimed films, Another Round, is being remade in the U.S. What are your thoughts on that?
MIKKELSENI’m fine with people doing it — as long as I don’t have to. (Laughs.) I don’t know how it works, honestly. Another Round had a very specific Danish approach: It looks at heavy drinking not by condemning it, but by finding comedy in it. Finding comedy in the drama without making it into a comedy. That tonality is hard to replicate. My fear is they’ll turn it into a straight comedy or a finger-wagging “don’t drink” story. But if they can’t find the same balance Thomas did, then why do it? Maybe they’ll change it completely. But then it becomes a different story.
You both work internationally but keep returning to Denmark. What brings you back?
MIKKELSEN My language, my friends, and this kind of storytelling. Anders Thomas’ films are unlike anything else. It’s just nice to come home. I love being abroad, but I love being home too. So far, I’m lucky enough to do both.
KAAS For me, it’s specifically Anders Thomas. You don’t find his kind of storytelling anywhere else. That’s a big reason to keep working with him in Denmark.
The Gaza humanitarian crisis loomed large at the Venice Film Festival closing ceremony as multiple winners called for an end to the Israeli military campaign in the Palestinian territory.
The situation there has been a hot button topic throughout the 82nd edition of the festival, which unfolded just six weeks shy of the second anniversary of the Hamas terror attacks on Southern Israel on October 7 2023, which killed 1,200 people and resulted in the taking of 251 hostages.
At least 61,000 people living in the Gaza Strip have died in Israel’s subsequent military campaign aimed at wiping out Hamas and recovering the hostages, while aid agencies have warned of a looming “a man-made” famine, with at least 132,000 children under five-years-old expected to suffer from acute malnutrition.
Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania was the most outspoken as she received the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize for The Voice of Hind Rajab.
The film about the killing of six-year-old Hind Rajab, who was in a car with family members which was fired on by Israeli forces at they tried to flee Gaza City in early 2024, rocked the festival earlier in the week, receiving a record-breaking 23 minutes and 40 second ovations.
“I dedicate this world to the Palestinian Red Crescent and to all those who have risked everything to save lives in Gaza. They are real heroes. The voice of Hind is the voice of Gaza itself, a cry for rescue the entire world could hear, yet no one answered,” said Ben Hania.
“Her voice will continue to echo until accountability is real until justice is served. We all believe in the force of cinema. It’s what gathers us here tonight and what gives us the courage to tell stories that might otherwise be buried. Cinema cannot bring Hind back. Nor can it erase the atrocity committed against her. Nothing can ever restore what was taken,” she continued.
“But cinema can preserve her voice, make it resonate across borders, because her story is not hers alone. It is tragically the story of an entire people enduring genocide inflicted by a criminal Israeli regime that acts with impunity,” she added.
Ben Hania raised the plight of Hind Rajab’s mother Wissam Hamada and brother Eiyad, who remain in Gaza.
“This story is not only about memory it’s about urgency. Their lives remain in danger, as do the lives of countless mothers, fathers and children who wake up every day under the same sky of fear, hunger and bombardment. I urge the leaders of the world to save them. Their survival is not a matter of charity. It is a matter of justice, of humanity, of the minimum that the world owes to them. I also call for an end of this unbearable situation. Enough is enough.”
A number of other winners made similar appeals across the night including Italy’s Toni Servillo, who won Best Actor for his performance in La Grazia; Silent Friend co-star Luna Wedler, who won the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best New Young Actor, and Moroccan director Maryam Touzani who won the Audience Award for Calle Malaga.
“The joy I feel is profound but so is the pain I feel as I receive this award today,” said Touzani. “I feel pain because like many others I cannot forget the horror inflicted with such impunity and every second on the people of Gaza and the people of Palestine.”
“As a mother today, I consider myself even more fortunate to simply be able to look at my child as I speak,” continued the director, whose son was in the auditorium.
“For how many mothers have been made childless, how many children have been motherless, fatherless, have lost everything. How many more until this horror is brought to an end. Yes, we wipe our tears and keep going, but we refuse to lose our humanity. I must say I am proud and honored to be part of a festival that has been so engaged.”
In a break with tradition, the ceremony ended with an address from the Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem.
The Roman Catholic cardinal visited Gaza in July following an Israeli strike on the compound of the parish of the Holy Family, which killed three people and injured nine others, including the parish priest.
He spoke to the auditorium via live-video link from Jerusalem.
“A greeting from Jerusalem, the Holy Land, where we are living such a such a dramatic, difficult and divisive moment. You know the news so I don’t need to go into that, it’s dramatic as are the images of destruction, death and so much pain. One of the problems is that there is so much pain that there is no longer space for the pain of the other,” he said
What I want to say is that we’re living in a climate of deep hate, which is increasingly radical within both the Israeli and Palestinian populations… we see it in the violence, but also in the language… which is having a dehumanizing effect. The war needs to stop and we hope it will end soon… we all need to work to create a different dialogue, different outcomes,” he said.
He called on the world of culture and cinema to also play its part.
“I hope that also from Venice there will be a positive contribution in this sense to help us think in a different way.”
The undeniably robust 82nd edition of the VeniceInternational Film Festival has come to a triumphant finish.
Heading into Saturday night’s awards ceremony, Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Voice of Hind Rajab was widely viewed as the movie to beat for this year’s Golden Lion. The powerful Gaza-set drama, which tells the story of a 6-year-old Palestinian girl’s desperate pleas for rescue after Israeli forces killed her relatives, received a thunderous 21-minute standing ovation at its world premiere, one of the longest in the Venice Film Festival‘s history.
But the film ended up going home with the festival’s Silver Lion for the Grand Jury prize, aka second place.
“I dedicate this award to the Palestinian Red Crescent and to all those who have risked everything to save lives in Gaza. They are real heroes,” Ben Hania said in her powerful acceptance speech. “The voice of Hind is the voice of Gaza itself, a cry for rescue the entire world could hear, yet no one answered. Her voice will continue. Her voice will continue to echo until accountability is real, until justice is served.”
Hollywood heavyweights Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix, Alfonso Cuarón boosted the movie’s profile ahead of the festival by joining its team as executive producers, while critics on the Lido hailed it as an “intensely involving and resounding” indictment of Israel’s genocidal campaigns against the Palestinian population.
Jim Jarmusch‘s delicate triptych Father Mother Sister Brother, celebrated for its effortless poignancy, was the night’s dark horse champ, handing the American indie film icon his first Venice Golden Lion.
“Oh shit,” Jarmusch said as he accepted his trophy, before quickly adding, “All of us here who make films, we’re not motivated by competition, but I truly appreciate this unexpected honor.”
“Art does not have to address politics directly to be political,” Jarmusch went on. “It can engender empathy and a connection between us, which is really the first step for solving things and problems that we have. So I thank you for appreciating our quiet film.”
Father Mother Sister Brother is composed of three separate but thematically linked stories, each exploring adult siblings and their strained relationships with their parents. The film’s outstanding ensemble cast includes Tom Waits, Adam Driver, Mayim Bialik, Charlotte Rampling, Cate Blanchett, Vicky Krieps and Indya Moore, among others. The Hollywood Reporter‘s lead critic summed the film up as “a funny, tender, astutely observed jewel.”
Jim Jarmusch receives the Golden Lion for Best Film for “Father Mother Sister Brother” at the closing ceremony during the 82nd Venice International Film Festival.
Benny Safdie brought home the festival’s best director prize for his offbeat MMA biopic The Smashing Machine, his first feature as a solo director without his brother Josh Safdie, and Dwayne Johnson’s first movie as a serious dramatic actor.
Safdie gave an emotional shoutout to his star as he accepted his trophy, saying, “Oh my God, Dwayne, my friend, my brother, my partner — ‘shoulder and shoulder,’ that’s what we called it. I just want to thank you for diving in headfirst with a blindfold and X-ray vision. You truly performed with no net, and we jumped off the cliff together. We grew together, learned together.”
Chinese actress Xin Zhilei took home the festival’s first major awards category earlier in the evening, winning the best actress prize for her heart-wrenching performance in Chinese director Cai Shangjun’s drama The Sun Rises on Us All. The trophy was handed to Xin by jury member and fellow Chinese arthouse star Zhao Tao (Ash Is the Purest White).
And as many on the Lido predicted over the past week, best actor honors landed in the hands of the great Italian theater actor turned film icon Toni Servillo for his humane and hilarious performance as the president of Italy in Paolo Sorrentino’s meditative drama La Grazia. Critics have praised the film as a return to form for the Italian director and his muse, sparking talk of a potential repeat of their awards season magic in 2013, when their breakthrough collaboration, The Great Beauty, won the Oscar in the best international film category.
French filmmaker Valérie Donzelli and her co-writer Gilles Marchand won the best screenplay prize for At Work, an adaptation of a novel of the same name by author Franck Courtès. The film is a drama about a successful photographer who gives up everything to pursue a dream of becoming a writer.
Speculation was especially heated heading into the awards ceremony thanks to the absurd number of must-see movies that festival boss Alberto Barbera had secured for the 2025 program. Netflix brought its strongest slate in years to Italy, including Noah Baumbach’s George Clooney star vehicle Jay Kelly, Kathryn Bigelow’s gripping geopolitical thriller A House of Dynamite and Guillermo del Toro’s dark reimagining of Frankenstein, starring Jacob Elordi as the creature. And scores of the world’s top auteurs came to compete with strong new titles — many of them instant Oscar contenders the moment the customary standing ovations wound down each night inside Venice’s Sala Grande cinema.
Venice’s takeaway after nearly two weeks of peerless moviegoing was resounding: The business model of theatrical film may be under relentless assault, but the art form remains as vital as ever.
Korean maestro Park Chan-wook’s wildly inventive black comedy No Other Choice was possibly the festival favorite with critics, while Yorgos Lanthimos’ bonkers Bugonia and Sorrentino’s aching La Grazia were also celebrated as exquisite returns to form. Show-stopping performances that went home empty-handed came in the form of Julia Roberts in Luca Guadagnino’s provocative #MeToo-themed thriller After the Hunt and Amanda Seyfried as the riveting lead of Mona Fastvold’s visionary period drama Ann Lee.
And there was much more: Jude Law as Vladimir Putin in Olivier Assayas’ The Wizard of the Kremlin, France’s François Ozon back in fine form with Albert Camus adaptation The Stranger, Willem Dafoe pulling double-duty with characteristic excellence in Late Fame and The Souffleur, Julian Schnabel’s must-see, Megalopolis-like misfire In the Hand of Dante (with a cast including Oscar Isaac, Gal Gadot, Gerard Butler, Al Pacino, John Malkovich, Martin Scorsese and Jason Momoa), and the one and only Werner Herzog receiving a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the start of the fest from none less than fellow uber-auteur Francis Ford Coppola.
Two-time Oscar-winning director Alexander Payne (The Holdovers, Sideways) chaired the panel of global film figures tasked with the difficult duty of selecting this year’s winners. Payne’s jury included Brazilian actress Fernanda Torres, Iranian auteur Mohammad Rasoulof, French director Stéphane Brizé, Italian filmmaker Maura Delpero (Vermiglio), Chinese actress Zhao and Palme d’Or winning Romanian director Cristian Mungiu.
Saturday’s ceremony included a tribute and prolonged standing ovation for the late, great Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani, who died Thursday at the age of 91.
“Thank you, Giorgio Armani, for teaching us that creativity thrives in spaces where disciplines meet —fashion, cinema, art, new materials, architecture — just like they do every day here at the Venice Biennale,” said Carlo Ratti, curator of the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, which is currently underway alongside the film festival.
The 2025 Horizons section (Orizzonti) — which highlights the latest aesthetic trends in cinema with special attention to debut films — honored Mexican director David Pablos’ hauntingly original road movie En El Camino (On the Road) with its best film prize. The film follows a young drifter and a taciturn trucker who link up and forge a precarious bond on Mexico’s dangerous highways.
“This film comes from a very personal place — from the guts — and it’s beautiful to see that it connects with other people,” said Pablos in his brief acceptance speech.
This year’s Horizons jury was chaired by French director and Palme d’Or winner Julia Ducournau of Titane fame.
Italy’s Benedetta Porcaroli took Horizons’ best actress prize for the drama The Kidnapping of Arabellaand Giacomo Covi nabbed best actor for his turn in the Italian-French coming-of-age film A Year of School. Indian filmmaker Anuparna Roy won best director for Songs of the Forgotten Trees, a moving drama set in Mumbai about an unlikely bond that forms between a part-time sex worker and a corporate employee. And the Orizzonti jury prize was handed to Japanese director Akio Fujimoto for his drama Lost Land, the story of two Rohingya child refugees on a perilous journey to reach Malaysia.
The 2025 Venice Film Festival ran Aug. 27-Sept. 6. A complete list of this year’s winners follows.
Main Competition
Golden Lion — Best Film Father Mother Sister Brother
“What is genius? It is imagination, intuition, decision, and speed of execution,” according to a line from Mario Monicelli’s film Amici Miei – Atto IIº. And it is precisely this genius, mixed with a healthy dash of creativity, that Elda Calabrese, an Italian artist and doctor of pharmacy, showed this week when she improvised a red carpet look at the Venice Film Festival 2025.
Some attendees spend weeks planning their looks for their big red carpet moment at the festival, and Calabrese, according to a post on her Instagram this week, was one such moviegoer. Calabrese wrote that she had been looking forward to the night for a month, when disaster struck the day before. As she arrived by train, she said, someone snatched her suitcase.
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In an instant, everything she’d had ready for her look—save for her boots, which she joked about being lucky the thief didn’t take off her feet—was gone. When she reached her hotel room, however, inventiveness took over. Her bedsheet became her improvised gown for the evening.
“I decided to unleash my creativity by dressing myself directly with my bed sheet and even creating a train,” she wrote in her caption, (translated here from Italian). She created a draped neckline, added a belt to cinch her waist, and scribbled “ROBBED” in pen on the look’s makeshift train in a nod to her dilemma.
Instead of having her glam night out foiled by the thief, she wrote, “I was incredulous that I received so many compliments on an outfit that didn’t actually exist.”
Calabrese closed her riches-to-rags (bedsheets) story by directly addressing the mystery perpetrator who snatched her luggage: “Enjoy my clothes and jewelry, but remember, karma is always watching,” she wrote.
The co-founder and Chief Brand Officer of Moda Operandi, contributing editor at Vogue, and artistic director of Tiffany & Co.’s home collection shares her picks with Vanity Fair.
Ciao! The 82nd annual Venice Film Festival is underway and the stars have hit the canals, with this year’s world premieres including Yorgos Lanthimos kidnap thriller “Bugonia,” Noah Baumbach’s showbiz dramedy “Jay Kelly,” Guillermo del Toro’s lavish adaptation “Frankenstein,” Luca Guadagnino’s college campus thriller “After the Hunt” and Benny Safdie’s UFC biopic “The Smashing Machine.” […]
Fashion trends may come and go, but, as the 16th annual DVF Awards proved at the Venice Film Festival 2025 last week, making a positive change in the world is always in style.
Diane von Furstenberg and The Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation founded the annual honors in 2010 to recognize and amplify women who work to improve the lives of other women worldwide, showing strength, courage, and leadership. The awards this year, held on August 28 in the midst of the Venice Film Festival went to five women doing just that. Hanin Ahmed, Christy Turlington Burns, Fany Kuiro Castro, Kim Kardashian, and Giulia Minoli collected this year’s honors, as well as a grant for their respective non-profit organizations, in recognition of their work to support and uplift others.
Von Furstenberg herself was on hand for the festivities, of course, and a well-heeled crowd of invitees gathered to celebrate the winners’ impact-making work, which you can learn more about on the awards’ website.
Below, take a look inside the 16th annual 2025 DVF Awards in Venice.
The magic of the Venice Film Festival is real, as I discovered—on the screen and the red carpets, the vaporettos and the streets of Lido. Venice is now considered the first stop on the yellow brick road to the Oscars, where awards contenders find their first rapt audiences. But much of the glamour of the festival manifests itself behind the scenes, in the parties and galas held in hotels, old industrial buildings, or on the tiny islands dotted around Venice.
One of the grandest rituals is the annual amfAR gala, held on Sunday night at the Arsenale di Venezia to fundraise for AIDS research. A succession of water taxis pulled up at the dock of the former arsenal, releasing a seemingly endless stream of starlets (and wannabe-starlets) in outrageous gowns and precarious heels, gingerly making their way toward the bright lights of the cameras awaiting them.
Singer Halsey, somehow looking both sultry and gamine in a lace-bodiced gown and cropped hair, laughed her way down the red carpet. Accompanied by actor Avian Jogia, Halsey struggled at times to control the feathers on her dress. Feathers seemed to be in the air at amfAR—quite literally at one point during dinner as feathers flew off an attendee’s dress and landed on a stranger’s appetizer. ParisJackson—daughter of Michael and one of the evening’s musical performers—arrived looking like a bird of paradise in a colorful gown and feather earrings.
Paris Jackson at the amfAR Gala
Stephane Cardinale – Corbis/Getty Images
Industry and Bodies Bodies Bodies star Myha’la bucked the fowl trend, wearing instead a big Afro and a little black dress, while Sofia Carson floated into the gala in a pale pink couture confection. Asked if her life had changed much since My Oxford Year made her a known quantity, she said that it had—though pressed as to why, she couldn’t explain, and quickly returned to posing for cameras. Sasha Baron Cohen, on the other hand, flew under the radar, quietly making his way round the party with alter egos Borat and Ali G nowhere in sight.
Over cocktails, Colman Domingo, host of this year’s event, greeted arrivals in a dapper green jacquard jacket and big gala energy. He answered every question with a smile and an elegant response that circled back to amfAR and its stellar mission. When asked about his forthcoming Jackson biopic, for instance, Domingo mentioned how excited he was to have Paris at the event with him.
Armando Rivera, Myha’la and Colman Domingo at the amfAR Gala in Venice.
“I had met many great designers before, but he was different: he wore worn Stan Smiths, spoke naturally, loved the same bands and artists I did, and shared my same appreciation and sense of humor about the idea of being ‘feminine,’” Sofia Coppola writes of Marc Jacobs in the introduction to the 2019 book Marc Jacobs Illustrated.
You can tell: it was love at first sight between Coppola and the New York designer, an immediate connection. One of those bonds so instant and true that it seems almost the residue of another life; so predisposed, spontaneous, easy. Their friendship was so monumental to both of them that it inspired Coppola to direct a documentary about him, giving the world a glimpse at their megawatt friendship.
Sofia Coppola and Marc Jacobs backstage at the Louis Vuitton spring/summer 2014 fashion show.
Rindoff/Dufour/Getty Images
As previously announced, Marc by Sofia—that’s the film’s title, winking at the Marc By Marc Jacobs fashion line—will be presented out of competition at the Venice Film Festival 2025 Tuesday. Rather than a classic celebratory biography detailing the designer’s (staggering) life and achievements, the film is presented as an intimate portrait of an unpretentious, straightforward friendship, which extended to an artistic and professional partnership. With Coppola behind the camera, audiences will be treated to a cinematic portrait created by someone who has known Jacobs since he was just a 29-year-old with a great passion for grunge.
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Marc Jacobs burst onto the scene on November 3, 1992, when he was creative director of Perry Ellis—a brand carved out of practical American elegance—and decided to pay homage to Seattle’s vibrant grunge scene. He incorporated flannel shirts, plaid skirts, Dr. Martens, worn-out T-shirts, deliberately offbeat patterns, and wild hair into his designs. It was an aesthetic cataclysm that short-circuited the entire fashion establishment—and riled the likes of Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love, who reportedly burned samples out of disdain. Jacobs was fired on the spot. While the press railed against him, with fashion journalist Suzy Menkes at the forefront, high-profile fans began to emerge in support of Jacobs and his shocking presentation. For Gianni Versace, the collection “is fresh, very New York, and besides, he’s a very nice guy.” For Sofia Coppola, it is “an epiphany.”
If you can’t be in Venice this year, Variety is bringing Venice to you. We’re publishing daily digital editions, running Aug. 29 – Sept. 2, including all the latest news, reviews and star-studded red carpet coverage from the Lido. To catch up on Day 4, please click below.
The Venice Film Festival is always a glamorous affair, but this year’s prestigious competition just might be the most star-studded yet. The 11-day extravaganza, which kicks off on August 27 and runs through September 6, is filled with noteworthy film premieres, screenings and fêtes, all of which are attended by A-list filmmakers and celebrities.
Alexander Payne is the jury president for the 82nd Venice International Film Festival, and this year’s Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement which will be awarded to Werner Herzog and Kim Novak.
Glitzy movie premieres aside, let’s not forget about the sartorial moments at Venice, because attendees always bring their most fashionable A-game to walk the red carpet in front of the Lido’s Palazzo del Cinema. It’s a week-and-a-half of some of the best style moments of the year, and we’re keeping you updated with all the top ensembles on the Venice red carpet. Below, see the best fashion moments from the 2025 Venice International Film Festival.
Emily Blunt. Getty Images
Emily Blunt
in Tamara Ralph
Halsey. WireImage
Halsey
Dwayne Johnson. Getty Images
Dwayne Johnson
Kaia Gerber and Lewis Pullman. FilmMagic
Kaia Gerber and Lewis Pullman
Gerber in Givenchy
Amanda Seyfried. Getty Images
Amanda Seyfried
in Prada
Thomasin McKenzie. Corbis via Getty Images
Thomasin McKenzie
in Rodarte
Stacy Martin. Deadline via Getty Images
Stacy Martin
Alexa Chung. Corbis via Getty Images
Alexa Chung
in Chloe
Alicia Vikander. Getty Images
Alicia Vikander
in Louis Vuitton
Cate Blanchett. Max Cisotti/Dave Benett/WireImag
Cate Blanchett
in Maison Margiela
Charlotte Rampling. WireImage
Charlotte Rampling
in Saint Laurent
Mayim Bialik. Getty Images
Mayim Bialik
in Saint Laurent
Alicia Silverstone. WireImage
Alicia Silverstone
Luka Sabbat. WireImage
Luka Sabbat
Jude Law. Corbis via Getty Images
Jude Law
Da’Vine Joy Randolph. WireImage
Da’Vine Joy Randolph
in Alfredo Martinez
Shailene Woodley. FilmMagic
Shailene Woodley
in Fendi
Molly Gordon. Getty Images
Molly Gordon
in Giorgio Armani
Mia Goth. Getty Images
Mia Goth
in Dior
Jacob Elordi. WireImage
Jacob Elordi
Kaitlyn Dever. Getty Images
Kaitlyn Dever
in Giorgio Armani
Callum Turner. Getty Images
Callum Turner
in Louis Vuitton
Leslie Bibb. Getty Images
Leslie Bibb
in Giorgio Armani
Paris Jackson. Getty Images
Paris Jackson
in Trussardi
Gemma Chan. Max Cisotti/Dave Benett/WireImag
Gemma Chan
in Armani Privé
Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. Max Cisotti/Dave Benett/WireImag
Rosie Huntington-Whiteley
in Armani Privé
Sofia Carson. WireImage
Sofia Carson
in Armani Privé
Suki Waterhouse. Getty Images
Suki Waterhouse
in Rabanne
Tilda Swinton. Getty Images
Tilda Swinton
in Chanel
Julia Roberts. WireImage
Julia Roberts
in Versace
Ayo Edebiri. Getty Images
Ayo Edebiri
in Chanel
Monica Barbaro. WireImage
Monica Barbaro
in Dior
Andrew Garfield. WireImage
Andrew Garfield
in Dior
Chloe Sevigny. Getty Images
Chloe Sevigny
in Saint Laurent
Lady Amelia Spencer and Lady Eliza Spencer. Getty Images
Mexico in the late 1980s. The eight-year-old Roberta watches her family of seven women fight to save their home from mounting debt. It is a struggle that will reshape how she sees herself and those around her. This is the premise of Vanilla (Vainilla), the feature directorial debut by writer-director Mayra Hermosillo, an actress you may know from Netflix’s Narcos: Mexico or Amat Escalante’s Lost in the Night.
World premiering Wednesday, Sept. 3, in the Giornate degli Autori (Venice Days) lineup, a sidebar of the Venice International Film Festival, the ensemble cast includes Aurora Dávila, María Castellá, Natalia Plascencia, Paloma Petra, Rosy Rojas, Fernanda Baca and Lola Ochoa.
The cinematography is courtesy of Jessica Villamil, with Sonia Sánchez Carrasco handling editing. The producers are Stacy Perskie (Bardo, Spectre), Karla Luna Cantú, Andrea Porras Madero and Paloma Petra. Bendita Film Sales is handling world sales.
Based on personal experiences and set in a nontraditional, all-female, multigenerational household, Vanilla is about “the difficult process of breaking free from the limitations of inherited social expectations of women,” highlights a description of the movie. As such, it is “a deeply sensitive exploration of identity, family, and the experience of womanhood.”
The filmmaker tapped into her personal and professional experience for Vanilla. “I’ve had the privilege of learning from filmmakers whose work encouraged me to find my own voice as a writer and director,” says Hermosillo. “That journey led me to Vanilla, a story rooted in my childhood in northern Mexico. I grew up in a nontraditional home, and although it felt normal to me, the conservative community around us didn’t see it that way.”
She continues: “The film follows Roberta, a young girl shaped by this environment, who believes she can somehow fix her family’s situation. It’s a story about growing up too soon, about how shame and love intertwine, and how identity is formed when you live outside the norm.”
Vanilla
Courtesy of Venice Days
Concludes Hermosillo: “Rather than criticize tradition, Vanilla asks what it means to belong, and how we judge lives different from our own. Making this film in my hometown is my way of honoring where I come from, while opening the door for other stories that explore family, gender and resilience in places often overlooked by cinema.”
The trailer for Vanilla that THR can exclusively present below hints at how the movie features all sorts, including signs of financial challenges, a contest featuring a beach holiday as a prize, smiles, dancing, the beach, ice cream.
Two longtime friends will make for among Venice’s most-discussed red-carpet pairings.
Sofia Coppola is the director of “Marc by Sofia,” a new A24 documentary premiering at Venice Sept. 2. Coppola was approached by producers R.J. Cutler and Jane Cha Cutler to make the film, which is a kaleidoscopic exploration of Jacobs, tracing both his production of a single collection and his influences over time.
Coppola and Jacobs spoke to Variety the day before one important milestone. “I’m excited for my dress fitting tomorrow, with Marc,” Coppola said. “That’s always exciting and scary.” Jacobs was anxious about how the film will go over, but told Variety, “I know I’m in good hands with Sofia.”
Marc, you’ve lived in the public eye, but was there a new vulnerability in allowing Sofia to tell your story?
Marc Jacobs: I always feel pretty vulnerable when I show work or when I share work, but I felt very comfortable exposing everything to Sofia. It felt very natural, once I was over the initial anxiety of actually participating.
Knowing Marc as well as you do, what about him jumped out — not merely as a friend, but someone you could actually make a film about?
Sofia Coppola: I wasn’t thinking of doing a documentary, but I always love talking to Marc. He’s interesting and inspiring. And so when the Cutlers approached me — they had talked to Marc about this documentary, and would I do it? — I thought “I can’t do that. Because that’s my friend, I’d have to do a good job.”
But I kept thinking about how much fun it would be to follow this collection, popping in throughout the process, and then also wanting to share all his references and inspirations with the younger generation.
There’s a real mood-board quality to how the film draws together clips of all of Marc’s inspirations.
Coppola: I wanted it to feel like an impressionistic portrait of him, and to be able to go on these tangents about his inspirations. To try to meander, and discover as we go. It was new for me, and really fun to work this way — we got to almost collage.
Working together, did both of you realize that making a film and staging a fashion show have surprising similarities?
Coppola: I always felt a connection, because all creative people have some similar language, even though we work differently.
Jacobs: I think back to when I first met Sofia, it was very clear that we shared certain loves — artists, musicians, moments in fashion and photography. One of the reasons why we bonded was that we did have these loves in common.
I remember seeing a Fiorucci poster in her house — we’ve always shared that. We’ve always shared Sonic Youth. This felt like a continuation: Rediscovering these things that have always been catalysts for me, for her, or for both of us.
Coppola: Whenever I see a leopard-print coat in his collection, I think of Mrs. Robinson [from “The Graduate”]. We both think of Mrs. Robinson. It’s great to have that shorthand: I was trying to make the film feel personal, but I always want to include the audience. I never want you to not feel like part of it.
Sofia, you’re well-known for films probing the inner lives of young women. Did chronicling Marc’s life feel unusual for this reason?
Coppola: I didn’t think about that. It’s always scary to make something — you’re figuring it out as you go. I just wanted to show a sincere depiction of Marc — I wanted it to feel personal, never intrusive or prying, but to share things that I know about Marc.
An eternal “it girl” — charismatic, original and ahead of every curve right up until she died this year aged 78 — British singer-songwriter-actor Marianne Faithfull receives a fulsome, loving tribute with sui generis cinematic whatsit Broken English.
A fittingly weird and wacky portrait of a woman whose career was full of swerves and swoops, this feature flutters between docu-style, seemingly unrehearsed conversations with Faithfull herself in her last months; reflections on her legacy from a studio of female intellectuals; covers of her songs by eminent admirers (such as Beth Orton and Courtney Love); and little bits of staged and written dramatic vignettes, performed by the likes of Tilda Swinton, George MacKay, Sophia Di Martino and Zawe Ashton among others, all pretending to be bureaucrats employed at the Ministry of Not Forgetting.
Broken English
The Bottom Line
The making of an icon.
Venue: Venice Film Festival (Out of Competition) Cast: Marianne Faithful, Tilda Swinton, George MacKay, Sophia Di Martino, Zawe Ashton Directors: Iain Forsyth, Jane Pollard Screenwriters: Iain Forsyth, Jane Pollard, Ian Martin, Will Maclean
1 hour 39 minutes
In other words, it’s a lot like 20,000 Days on Earth, the directors Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard’s breakout feature about singer-songwriter Nick Cave and his collaborator Warren Ellis (both appear here too), another kooky-compelling blend of doc, performance and flights of fancy, with a big dollop of gutsy pretension.
As with nearly every film homage to a significant figure in the arts, the mileage of viewers’ affection will vary according to how much they’re pre-sold on the artist’s oeuvre in general. Even though Faithfull has been in the public eye since the mid-1960s, when she broke out as a singer/actor/counterculture poster girl, she probably doesn’t have the same solid, fervent fan base that Cage has, an audience built up over years of consistently dispensed albums and tours.
That said, the diversity of media Faithful has worked in (theater, film, recorded music) and the range of musical genres she’s explored over the years (rock, folk, New Wave, Kurt Weill, jazz, spoken word and more) probably means she has the more eclectic and diverse fan base. And that’s before you get to people seduced mostly by her protean public image as it played out in the tabloid press — a long slow evolution from ingenue to bohemian belle to debauched grande dame and back.
While skittishly edited, the film nevertheless builds up Faithfull’s biography in basic chronological order. The scripted sections, with all those name actors playing fictional civil servants, don’t always mesh effectively with the more spontaneous, doc-style interludes, but they serve to clarify the timelines and relationships and add editorial gloss.
That’s the job mostly of Swinton’s Overseer, seen on her own mostly in a studio set wearing a suit and tie, recording thoughts about Faithfull into a Dictaphone as if for future transcription. MacKay, on the other hand, has double duty with his role as the Record Keeper. Sometimes he’s reading through old-fashioned card files and muttering to himself, but mostly he serves as Faithfull’s onscreen interviewer, establishing a charming rapport with her that suggests chat-show host could be a future career option for him.
To be sure, he acquits himself better as an interlocuter than some of the interviewers we see in archive clips, including legendarily prurient prober Terry Wogan and a rather rude Tony Wilson. Faithfull takes everything in stride, and in the clips with MacKay that luminous smile hardly ever breaks even though it’s clear that time and COVID had taken their toll on Faithfull by the end.
Watching the archive material, she mostly seems amused by her younger self, and all the outrageous antics of her years of peak fame, like the infamous time she was arrested at Keith Richards’ house, Redlands, while wearing only a fur rug, or the time she met Bob Dylan, captured on film by D.A. Pennebaker for his doc Don’t Look Back. At one point, MacKay shows her a recently rediscovered clip of her singing Weill songs with a symphonic orchestra, her voice in particularly good form. What does she think, he asks. “I wish I’d worn lipstick,” comes the giggly, nonchalant reply.
Most of the stations of Faithfull’s cross also get visited here, including the overdoses and struggles with addiction, breakups, a miscarried child, and spells when she was clearly being exploited by others who were happy to use her notoriety to their own advantage. All the same, Faithfull is hesitant in the film’s present to castigate anyone too much, and like so many other women of her generation, she wears her trauma lightly like a casually tied scarf. The intellectuals pulled in by Forsyth and Pollard to discuss her legacy in what looks like a BBC radio recording studio, everyone wearing headphones, are the ones who parse the deeper meanings of the Faithfull, her iconicity as a sex symbol, notorious junkie or comeback kid.
If all that is a little too cerebral, viewers can wait out the pontificating until the next performance comes along. Some of the covers are inevitably stronger than others. Orton’s stripped down As Tears Go By is one standout, as is the dance-forward rendition of Why’d Ya Do It? performed by Jehnny Beth. Of course, the emotional climax of the film is the last song, Misunderstanding, sung by Faithfull herself with support from Cave and Ellis, a beautiful, wrenching ballad that takes maximum advantage of the cracked timbre of Faithfull’s mature voice. It was her last performance ever recorded, and it serves as a lovely, weathered gravestone for a rich and full life.
Doha Film Institute CEO Fatma Hassan Alremaihi was fêted Saturday on the rooftop terrace of Venice’s The Gritti Palace hotel where she received Variety’s 2025 Achievement in International Film Award just as rays of sunshine pierced through light clouds at the packed afternoon event.
“I want to thank Her Excellency Sheikha Al Mayassa, whose unwavering belief in the power of creativity and cultural exchange has shaped every step of our journey,” said Alremaihi, who over the past 15 years has been instrumental to turning the DFI into a crucial cornerstone of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region film industry.
“This award reflects a collective mission that has guided us for the past 15 years: to amplify Arab voices, to nurture creative talent, and to share untold stories with the world,” she added, noting that “It’s not just about what we have achieved, it’s about what we aspire to.”
“At a time when division and misunderstanding too often dominate the narrative, voices from our region are more vital than ever,” Alremaihi continued. “This award is a powerful reminder that our mission matters and strengthens our resolve to keep empowering important voices.”
The DFI has a record number of 12 supported films premiering at the Venice Festival. They include Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania’s competition entry “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” about the killing of a 5-year-old Palestinian girl who was left stranded in a car that had been attacked by Israeli forces in Gaza in 2024 and later found dead. Unveiling the lineup in July, Venice artistic director Alberto Barbera described it as a moving film that he believed would “most impress audiences and critics.”
Other DFI executives attending the event included the institute’s director of film funding and programs Hana Issa. Also spotted were Red Sea Festival managing director Shivani Pandya, Rome Film Festival co-founder Teresa Cavina, Malta Film Commissioner Johann Grech, Tora Kim (K-Pops!), Taormina Film Festival director Tiziana Rocca, and Rodolphe Ratzel, managing director of Cartier South-East Europe.
