Venice Festival opening: Is Hollywood in an identity crisis or is it the film festivals?

That’s also why the Venice International Film Festival, which begins this Wednesday, holds a special place in the hearts of many people in the industry. Sure, it’s about business here too, but the Mostra Internazionale d’Arte Cinematografica has maintained the illusion that the glamor of world cinema can be nicely integrated into reality – the lives of the locals, the holidaymakers strolling along the Lungomare Guglielmo Marconi, the famous waterfront promenade. In Cannes, on the other hand, you can feel like you’re in the Truman Show during the twelve days of the film festival.

This year’s Venice edition, the 83rd since the festival’s founding in 1932, must also seem like a reality check to Alberto Barbera. The festival director has been there since in constant defense mode following the announcement of the program at the end of July. After the number of stars on the Lido reached absurd proportions last year, Barbera is also feeling the new restraint from Hollywood this year.

The list of titles that will not be shown at the festival this year – including the new films by Alejandro González Iñárritu (starring Tom Cruise and Sandra Hülser), Luca Guadagnino’s Sam Altman biopic, Aaron Sorkin’s Facebook film “The Social Reckoning” and David Fincher’s “The Adventures of Cliff Booth” (starring Brad Pitt) – is significantly longer than the list of participants from the major studios.

Where are you going to Hollywood?

During Barbera’s second term in office, which was recently extended until 2028, Venice became a veritable Hollywood satellite: the launching pad for the Oscar season. However, over the years, many a promising film’s reputation has been ruined before even a film fan could see it. The Lido rips from “Joker: Folie à Deux” still haunt the dreams of many a Warner executive today.

Hollywood with its stars is the lubricant for the big festivals. In their slipstream, the ambitious films of world cinema also receive greater attention. This lament has been known in Berlin for what feels like decades. This year, Cannes boss Thierry Frémaux also had to listen to bold questions for the first time as to why the US studios were avoiding the Croisette.

However, Frémaux manages to attract big names even without Hollywood star power; Many stars are now looking for their more interesting film projects in Europe or Asia. But the trend is no longer undeniable with this year’s Venice line-up.

In interviews, Barbera spoke of the fact that the studios are currently going through an identity crisis due to the changes in the market. On the one hand, in 2026 Hollywood will for the first time achieve sales like before the pandemic. At the same time, it is becoming increasingly complicated and risky to bring prestige projects to the film-interested public. A former Venice favorite like Paul Thomas Anderson or Christopher Nolan no longer needs festivals for this.

Especially since the costs for participation, including for the reporting press, have recently risen so exorbitantly that many people now (have to) think twice about a trip to the Lido. So you could just as easily turn the tables: Hollywood’s cancellations could sooner or later plunge film festivals into an identity crisis. If the big studios’ long-term strategy was to rely less on festivals, Hollywood fanboy Alberto Barbera in particular would have a problem.

Guy Pearce as Rupert Murdoch in the opening film

Martin McDonagh’s spy farce “Wild Horse Nine” about the Chilean coup in 1973 (with John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell), Werner Herzog’s “Bucking Fastard” (with Kate & Rooney Mara and Orlando Bloom), Florian Zeller’s “Bunker” (with Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem) and the A24 production “Primetime” with Robert Pattinson are the films that will probably generate the greatest hype.

The latter also forms a nice media-critical double with the opening film “Ink”. Danny Boyle’s biopic is about the rise of Rupert Murdoch, played by Guy Pearce, to become “Sun” editor and British newspaper module in the 1960s. Pattinson plays Chris Hansen, the controversial host of the NBC crime show “To Catch a Predator,” in which pedophile men were caught on camera.

The rest of the program is a solid mix of the established (Nanni Moretti, Hirokazu Koreeda, Florian Zeller, Casey Affleck) with a few outliers. Korean director Lee Chang-dong returns to the festival stage with “Possible Love,” eight years after his acclaimed drama “Burning.” Barbera also had to put up with a lot of headwind because, for a long time, only one female director, May el-Toukhy, was represented in the competition until the documentary film “Naza” was re-nominated.

And Alberto Barbera shares another problem besides the rampant “glamour drain” with Berlinale director Tricia Tuttle. At the weekend, the festival management initially announced that the jury’s traditional press conference on the opening day would be canceled. Last year, jury president Alexander Payne was exposed to critical questions from journalists about the Middle East conflict. A careless statement by jury president Wim Wenders recently triggered an international call for a boycott at the Berlinale.

On Monday, Barbera immediately rowed back after criticizing the decision, but rejected the assumption that the cancellation was intended to protect this year’s jury leader Maggie Gyllenhaal and the Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania. But the back and forth suggests that the festival management is nervous after the controversies surrounding the current art biennale, which has to forego EU funding because of Russia’s participation.

Hania won the Jury Prize a year ago with the drama “The Voice of Hind Rajab”. Five-year-old Hind died in a barrage of fire from the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip in January 2024. Last year the festival was already accompanied by pro-Palestinian rallies. Barbera’s subsequent nomination is explosive in this regard.

The documentary “Naza” by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor critically examines the actions of the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza. Two years ago, the Israeli journalist Abraham won the award for best documentary at the Berlinale with “No Other Land,” about the occupation of the West Bank – and later faced accusations of anti-Semitism for his acceptance speech. The film then won the documentary Oscar in 2025. Barbera probably doesn’t have to worry about international attention even without stars.

Especially since he has invited two other sensitive films to the Lido: the Russian-born director Ilya Chrschanowski and his latest film from the mammoth project “Dau” and the four-hour documentary “Musk” by Alex Gibney.

At the Berlinale 2020, Chrschanowski was highly controversial with the first “Dau”: on the one hand because of the accusation of totalitarian porn, and on the other hand because of attacks on the set. Ukraine protests the Venice invitation, even though the director gave up his Russian passport long before the attack on Ukraine.

Gibney and Musk, in turn, had funny verbal battles two years ago on X, then still Twitter. Musk, who is not involved in the film, would definitely be able to make a spontaneous visit to the Lido, if only for the attention. In any case, it won’t be boring this year.