Artistic Director Alberto Barbera unveiled the lineup for the 83rd Venice International Film Festival on Thursday, and, as ever, there is no shortage of auteur firepower headed for the Lido.
The competition slate includes Primetime, starring and produced by Robert Pattinson; Bunker, with Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem; Ink, featuring Jack O’Connell, Guy Pearce and Claire Foy; and The Echo Chamber, led by Alicia Vikander. There are also hotly anticipated new features from Martin McDonagh (Wild Horses Nine), Lee Chang-dong (Possible Love) and Werner Herzog (Bucking Fastard).
But compared with last year — when Jacob Elordi, Dwayne Johnson, Emma Stone, George Clooney and Julia Roberts helped turn Venice into a red-carpet supernova — the wattage is noticeably dimmer. The lineup is also light on Hollywood studio fare, continuing a troubling pattern seen this year in Berlin and Cannes: the majors are increasingly ghosting the big festivals.
Equally glaring is the gender imbalance. Of the 20 films in competition, just one — May El-Toukhy’s Danish drama Woman Unknown — has a female director. Nearly a decade after Barbera signed the 50/50 by 2020 pledge to improve representation for women filmmakers at Venice, the numbers offer little evidence of progress.
