And they include one of my all-time favorite filmmakers, Soudade Kaadan, along with American director and screenwriter Debra Granik, and Canadian actress Taylor Russell.
Read MoreVenice Film Festival Competition jury will include Andrew Haigh and Abderrahmane Sissako along with president Isabelle Huppert
Other members of the esteemed Venezia 81 jury include James Gray, Agnieszka Holland, Kleber Mendonça Filho, Giuseppe Tornatore, Julia von Heinz and Zhang Ziyi.
Read MoreA still from the film, courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
Tim Burton’s 'Beetlejuice Beetlejuice' to kick off 81st Venice Film Fest
The film features Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara, Justin Theroux, Monica Bellucci, with Jenna Ortega, and Willem Dafoe and will be screened on the 28th of August in the Sala Grande.
Read MoreJulianne Moore in ‘The Staggering Girl’ by Luca Guadagnino
The Cannes 2019 Diaries: Films that broke my heart and Luca Guadagnino's Valentino project
There has been a certain je ne sais quoi in the air here in Cannes, and I wasn’t able to quite put my finger on it. It bothered me, someone always good at defining a moment, person or place, that I couldn’t put that feeling into words. Then I attended the press conference for Luca Guadagnino’s ‘The Staggering Girl’ and I had a ‘EUREKA!” moment. So bear with me for a moment while I get to that…
Read More'Joy' by Sudabeh Mortezai, featuring Joy Anwulika Alphonsus
The Venice Diaries: Forget what you've heard, this year's festival is all about women's stories!
So you may have read by now that the Venice Film Festival is being singled out for not having enough women filmmakers in their Competition line-up. One publication even went so far to criticize Italian culture as a whole, and they used two non-Italian reporters to write the story of course -- one the token male journalist. Because a single, lone, able woman journalist would not have been able to do the job?
Ever hear that saying "don't talk bad about my mama?"
Anyway, while everyone is up in arms for yet another slight at womanhood, I say, get over it! I'm a woman, I'm Italian and I feel very well represented in Venice -- thank you very much. In fact, I have never seen so many beautiful women's stories, so much truth for our gender and so much care in telling those stories as I see in the various line-ups and sidebars this year at La Biennale del Cinema. But of course, you'd have to look beyond the media-selling headlines, watch deeper, dig in the sidebars too and know in your heart that great cinema was never about gender, rather about quality and vision. Just like it ain't about politics, even when the subject is political.
Read MoreCOURTESY OF THE VENICE FILM FESTIVAL
Trine Dyrholm in a still from ‘Nico 1988’
The Venice Film Festival Diaries: Kicking Off Big with ‘Downsizing’ and ‘Nico 1988’
Just when I think I have the Venice Film Festival figured out, La Biennale goes and changes the game on us! Instead of a grand spectacle like ‘Birdman’, ‘Everest’ or ‘La La Land’ — the three films that opened the past editions of the oldest film festival in the world, for this year’s 74th edition Artistic Director Alberto Barbera did a bit of ‘Downsizing’ — Alexander Payne’s ‘Downsizing’ that is, starring Matt Damon.
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