Venice rolls out the red carpet Wednesday, with George Clooney set to collect a lifetime achievement award as the film festival opens a starry two-week run heavy on biopics, war-zone dramas from Gaza and Iran, and a fresh reckoning with artificial intelligence.
Charismatic Clooney, 65, is a frequent red carpet guest at the world's oldest film festival, now in its 83rd year. The American actor, of Ocean's Eleven and Gravity fame, will receive a Golden Lion lifetime achievement award on Wednesday night. A household name from his role as Dr Ross in the television medical drama ER, Clooney went on to direct a host of films, including Good Night, and Good Luck and The Monuments Men, and is also known for his involvement in humanitarian causes. Clooney is also set to sit on a panel at an international symposium at the festival, which will discuss what artificial intelligence technology means for the industry. In an interview on the eve of the festival, director Alberto Barbera acknowledged the dangers but also the capabilities of the emerging technology, which has caused panic as well as excitement across a wide swathe of industries. Besides understanding how to control the technology, people need to ask how it can "begin to harness the extraordinary potential of this unprecedented technology," he told the French news agency AFP. Gaza on screen American actress Maggie Gyllenhaal is the jury president for this year's competition, which features 21 films. Opening the lineup of contenders for the Golden Lion is Ink, about the ruthless rise of businessman Rupert Murdoch to the top of the British media, from Trainspotting director Danny Boyle, who focuses on Murdoch's purchase of The Sun tabloid in 1969. Staying with real life, the main competition's only documentary – Naza – is about the Israeli forces' killing of civilians in Gaza, from Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor. The directors won an Oscar for 2024's No Other Land, which documented Israel's displacement of a Palestinian community in the West Bank. How the last words of a little girl in Gaza became an award-winning film At Venice's 2025 edition, The Voice of Hind Rajab, about a five-year-old Palestinian girl killed by Israeli troops, received a 23-minute standing ovation and took home the Grand Jury Prize. Barbera told AFP it was essential that what is happening in Gaza and the Middle East be talked about through the medium of film. "There are no fewer than four films that deal with the Palestinian issue and the current situation in Iran, so there can be no doubt about where we stand on this matter," Barbera said in an interview on Tuesday. Related documentaries at Venice include Citizen Osama, about a photojournalist in Gaza, and Road to Jericho, about the Israeli-occupied West Bank, from Israeli director Amos Gitai.
