Movies

On July 26, the day the Venice lineup was announced, my 14-year-old daughter Emma started hounding me that I had to take her on the red carpet to see Timothée Chalamet. Eventually, I relented, even though I thought the movie, “Bones and All” — about two cannibals who fall in love — would be too

Cairo-based film marketing and distribution outfit MAD Solutions has acquired rights for Arab territories to Venice competition entry “Les Miens” (“Our Ties”), directed by French actor and filmmaker of Moroccan descent Roschdy Zem. “Our Ties” is co-written by Zem with actor/director Maïwenn (“Polisse,” “Mon Roi”), who co-stars. Zem is a French cinema fixture, having starred in pics including

In “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” the photographer Nan Goldin tells a woeful, revealing, and in its way rather funny anecdote about how in the 1980s, when she first gathered up her photographs — casually transgressive images of her and her friends, who were often drag queens and addicts, along with shots of the

Variety has been given exclusive access to a first-look clip for “Amanda,” Carolina Cavalli’s quirky Italian-cool film in Venice Horizons, starring Benedetta Porcaroli (star of Netflix series “Baby”), and featuring Italian heavyweight Giovanna Mezzogiorno, and Italian “X-Factor” winner Michele Bravi. The film, which is reminiscent of early Wes Anderson, premieres at Venice on Monday, then

PBS International has unveiled the trailer for “Casa Susanna,” Sébastien Lifshitz’s follow up to “Little Girl,” which is having its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival in the Giornate degli Autori section. Produced by Agat Films, ARTE France and American Experience Films, in association with BBC Storyville, the documentary film will have its North

Feature documentary “The Ghost of Richard Harris,” which premieres Sunday at the Venice Film Festival, looks to answer the question: “Who was Richard Harris?” The film also contains the revelation that Harris was offered the role of Gandalf in Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” movies, but chose to take the part of Dumbledore in

With a title like “Women Talking,” audacious actor-turned-helmer Sarah Polley’s fourth feature makes clear that it will be one of those rare films capable of passing the Bechdel test. That barometer, for those who may not know, poses three seemingly easy-to-meet criteria: (1) The movie has to have at least two women in it, (2)

These days, with rappers singing about “wet-ass pussy” and Ana de Armas simulating a presidential blow job in “Blonde,” it’s hard to imagine a world in which a couple four-letter words are enough to get a book banned. In the case of D.H. Lawrence’s notorious 1928 novel “Lady Chatterley’s Lover,” it was more than just

By ALISSA SIMON  Actress, producer and musician Trace Lysette, known for her recurring role as Shea on all five seasons of Amazon’s “Transparent,” and for her appearance alongside Jennifer Lopez and Constance Wu in “Hustlers,” takes her career to a new level with a heart-rending turn in the title role of Venice competition title “Monica.” 

This fall, Arab filmmakers will be out in force at such prestigious international fests as Venice and Toronto. Venice alone boasts six features from first- and second-time Arab directors in its official sections, plus an additional six works-in-progress at its Final Cut Production Bridge. Meanwhile, Toronto opens with “The Swimmers,” a drama from U.K. helmer

Frederick Wiseman, a voracious reader, doesn’t watch television. In fact, he’d never really gotten through a whole series until recently, when he watched HBO’s “The Wire.” “I don’t know why, but it was interesting,” he tells Variety drily. Every couple of years, the 92-year-old master documentarian behind such seminal films as “Titicut Follies” and “Juvenile

After taking a break from his filmmaking career to preside over the French film promotion org Unifrance, Jean-Paul Salomé has made a big comeback with a pair of films with Oscar-nominated French actor Isabelle Huppert. The latest one, “The Sitting Duck,” is world premiering at Venice in the Horizons section. Adapted from Caroline Michel-Aguirre’s book

For Argentina’s Santiago Mitre, his courtroom drama “Argentina 1985,” a Golden Lion contender at the 79th Venice Film Festival, is an examination of the machinations of power from within, as were his past four features. But unlike those films, “Argentina 1985” is based on a real event, the trial of Argentina’s military leaders who ruled

Feature debutant Makbul Mubarak’s “Autobiography,” which premieres in Venice’s Horizons strand on Saturday, is a deeply personal tale informed by his own experiences. The film, which is being sold by Alpha Violet, follows young Rakib (Kevin Ardilova), whose father is in prison and whose brother works abroad. He works as the housekeeper in a mansion

Iconoclast, the international production group behind Romain Gavras’ Venice competition film “Athena,” is setting a wide-ranging slate of projects with emerging filmmakers from different audiovisual fields, including Leo Berne from the artists collective Megaforce, and Elias Belkeddar and Said Belktibia from the collective Kourtrajmé. The company is also producing the next projects of Harmony Korine and

Bhutanese filmmaker Dechen Roder’s new film, “I, The Song,” which is selected at the Venice Production Bridge’s gap financing market, will commence principal photography in December. Roder’s debut feature “Honeygiver Among the Dogs” premiered at Busan in 2016, and went on to have a successful festival run including at Berlin, Locarno, Hong Kong, Taipei and

Hot off of its Venice Film Festival premiere, a concept album for Cate Blanchett’s “Tár” is set to be released on Oct. 21. The film bowed to rave reviews and a six-minute standing ovation. The Focus Features film, releasing Oct. 7, stars Blanchett as the fictional Lydia Tár, a globally renowned, gay and sometimes tyrannical

Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle recently kicked off their joint comedy tour in Liverpool, England at the M&S Bank Arena, and the two comedians held nothing back while addressing the 2022 Oscar incident where Will Smith slapped Rock across the face. Rock was presenting an award and made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith’s bald

Jane Fonda announced on Instagram that she has been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and has started chemotherapy treatments. “This is a very treatable cancer,” Fonda wrote in the post. “80% of people survive, so I feel very lucky. I’m also lucky because I have health insurance and access to the best doctors and treatments. I

Timothee Chalamet had all of Venice seeing red on Friday night at the world premiere of “Bones and All.” The actor donned a sparkling red pantsuit (with no back above the waist) in the shade of blood, a cheeky wink to the drama’s central protagonists — two cannibals in love. The drama, which reunites Chalamet

There is no Athena housing project in Paris. That’s a name invented by “Athena” director Romain Gavras and partner in crime Ladj Ly for the banlieu apartment block that becomes a kind of makeshift fortress in an epic standoff between residents — first- and second-generation Black and Arab immigrants tired of being mistreated — and

The summer movie season is technically over after the Labor Day holiday weekend, but it’s still living on in a big way this month on streaming. September sees the streaming debuts of top summer blockbusters such as Disney’s “Thor: Love and Thunder” and Universal’s “Jurassic World Dominion,” the latter of which has grossed just under

Shia LaBeouf was in a reverential frame of mind at the first public screening of Abel Ferrara’s “Padre Pio” at the Venice Film Festival, as befits a film about a monk in a Capuchin monastery in post-WWI Italy. LaBeouf, who is embroiled in controversy after being accused of abuse and sexual battery in a bombshell

ACQUISITION Altitude has acquired Georgia Oakley’s feature “Blue Jean” for distribution in the U.K. and Ireland. The film, from U.K./French outfit Film Constellation, is headed to Venice, Toronto and the BFI’s London Film Festival this fall. It will premiere in Venice on Sept. 3. In “Blue Jean,” Rosy McEwen (“Vesper”) stars as lesbian P.E. teacher

In vampire movies, from “Nosferatu” to the “Twilight” films to “Only Lovers Left Alive,” bloodsucking is usually more than just bloodsucking — it’s about sex, addiction, power — and that’s why the main event in a vampire movie doesn’t have to be the literal spectacle of watching fangs tear into human flesh. The elegance of

It’s Timothée Chalamet Day in Venice. This isn’t a national holiday, but perhaps it should be. It’s just past 1:30 p.m. outside the Venice Film Festival’s Sala Casino, and a crowd of youth have set aside work and school commitments to travel into the Lido to catch a glimpse of the American superstar arriving for

After an unexpectedly robust summer at the international box office, there is a near-term question mark about what will happen next: Will recovery stall due to a paucity of Hollywood tentpole movies? Or will international theatrical decouple and find new drivers to maintain the momentum? The good news is that most of the international market’s

Being an actor sure comes in handy when it comes time to make a wedding speech. Jennifer Lopez revealed in her “On the JLo” newsletter that Ben Affleck slipped a line of dialogue he wrote for his 2016 directorial effort “Live By Night” into his wedding speech to her. Fortunately, the line was one of

Content studio Propogate, who are currently working on Netflix’s upcoming Anna Nicole Smith documentary, are opening a London office. The company has also appointed Catalina Ramirez and Dan Thunell to co-heads of Propagate International, the company’s global distribution arm. Ramirez has been upped from Propagate International’s vice president of sales and acquisitions. Her new role

On Friday morning, Timothée Chalamet blasted the social media world we are living in at the Venice press conference for Luca Guadagino’s “Bones and All” in which he and co-star Taylor Russell play cannibal lovers on a road trip across America. Taking his cue from the fact that the story is set in the ’80s,