‘The Deacon’: Sweden’s Arvet Agency Behind Horror From Venice Award-Winning Filmmaker Tequoia Urbina

Stalwart indie filmmaker Bill Pohlad today premeres in Venice Dreamin’ Wild. His directing follow up to the critically acclaimed Brian Wilson film Love & Mercy also follows a music story, though one far less familiar. Casey Affleck, Noah Jupe, Zooey Deschanel, Walton Goggins and Beau Bridges star. When Donnie Emerson (played by Affleck and Jupe) was a teenager growing up on his father’s farm in Fruitland, Washington (population 791) he spent his days writing music and dreaming of becoming a music star. And everyone in the family became invested in that dream, including his brother Joe (Goggins) who became his drummer, and especially his father, Don Sr (Bridges). He mortgaged his farm to build a $100,000 recording studio, and more to help Donnie make and release his first record. It went nowhere and the bulk of the farm had to be sold when the loan came due. But 30 years later, the overlooked album was rediscovered by the music scene. Suddenly Donnie, who continued to struggle and write and play his music, had gotten a taste of his childhood dreams. But it comes with the guilt of failure that haunted him for years, and involves having to play the songs that meant something as a teen, but not as a 50 year old man who has evolved as a musician. And it is all true.

Korea’s Busan International Film Festival (October 5-14) has announced its full line-up, including opening film Scent Of Wind, directed by Iran’s Hadi Mohaghegh, while Hong Kong actor Tony Leung Chiu-Wai will be honoured as Asian Filmmaker Of The Year.

Chris Pine's rep is denying a fan theory. In a statement to ET, the 42-year-old actor's rep shuts down claims that Harry Styles spit on Pine at the premiere of their flick, at the Venice Film Festival. «This is a ridiculous story… a complete fabrication and the result of an odd online illusion that is clearly deceiving and allows for foolish speculation,» Pine's rep tells ET.

Following the premiere of Olivia Wilde’s new film Don’t Worry Darling at the 2022 Venice International Film Festival, one piece of footage prompted fierce online debate. The clip in question, however, wasn’t from the film itself but from its screening’s aftermath, and it depicts what many are convinced is Harry Styles spitting on his co-star, American actor Chris Pine.

There’s always been a haunted mood in Joanna Hogg’s films, felt both in the deceptively mundane domestic rhythms of the likes of “Exhibition” and “Archipelago,” and in the exquisite memory pieces, “The Souvenir” and “The Souvenir Part II.” Like the best and most personal of storytellers—Chantal Akerman comes to mind as a creator with akin sensibilities—Hogg is a filmmaker possessed by the slivers of her recollections.

An eccentric 20-something tries to make friends in Amanda, a first feature for Italian writer-director Carolina Cavalli. Premiering in Venice’s Horizons Extra section, it’s a comical, stylized character portrait with a strong central turn from Benedetta Porcaroli. 

Reviews of Olivia Wilde’s psychological drama “Don’t Worry Darling” premiering at the Venice Film Festival are now out. And while it’s a little too early to land on a consensus (our review is mixed), unless you’ve been living under a rock, the film and the spectacle surrounding it have threatened to become one of the biggest, nosiest dramas of the year.

The tragedy at the center of “Love Life,” the new film from Japanese director Kōji Fukada which premieres in Competition at this year’s Venice Film Festival, does not come to disrupt a perfectly happy family. Cracks are visible in the facade of the life shared by Taeko (Fumino Kimura) and Jiro (Kento Nagayama) even before the fatal accident that claims the life of Keita (Tetta Shimada), her young son from a previous marriage.

The greatest strength of Ti West’s “X,” the very A24 vibes ‘n all sex-slasher which premiered to tepid acclaim at South By Southwest earlier this year, was never its reverence for “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre,” nor its lurid ‘70s grit and grain, nor its abundance of pornstaches. No, no: a double-dipping Mia Goth was the lynchpin, be it caked in prosthetics as the melting, murderous octogenarian Pearl or starlet-in-the-making (with an aptly porn-y name) Max Minx.

If you ever questioned it before, let “Bardo” — wordily subtitled ‘or False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths,’ as was the director’s wont with 2014’s “Birdman” — lay your queries to rest: Alejandro Iñárritu really, really loves Fellini. He’s not the only one, naturally: comparisons to “8 ½” are par for the course whenever a filmmaker comes out with a notionally autobiographical work, as with Pedro Almodóvar’s “Pain and Glory” in 2019.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor 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 goes to Toronto – it’s the only Italian film to play both fests this year. Charades is handling international sales. I Wonder is distributing in Italy. The film centers on Amanda, 24, who lives mostly isolated and has never had any friends, even if it’s the thing she wants the most. When she discovers that as toddlers her and Rebecca used to spend a lot of time together, Amanda chooses her new mission: to convince her that they are still best friends.

Alissa Simon Film Critic 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 Sally El Hosaini based on the journey of Syrian sisters and Olympic hopefuls Yusra and Sara Mardini, who fled the war in their home country for Germany. Yusra competed in the 2016 and 2021 Summer Olympics. An additional six Arab films will screen at the Canadian fest. Dek: Arab filmmakers embrace genres and issues as festivals and distributors take notice

To love is to want to consume someone whole, to pick their skin and sinews out of the gaps between your teeth, to swallow their pancreas and wash it all down with gulps of throat-fizzing stomach acid. Take the age-old question that dominates the Grindr lexicon: do you want to be someone, be with them, or be inside them? “Bones and All,” Luca Guadagnino’s typically sumptuous, deeply romantic American parable — about a pair of teen cannibals, coming of age against the backdrop of ‘80s Reaganism — literalizes this allure, as any great anthropophagist love story should.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Hillary Clinton and Universal’s Donna Langley praised U.S. director, producer and social justice activist Ava DuVernay for being “a pathbreaker, a change-maker, a historical filmmaker,” as Clinton put it, during the 13th DVF Awards. The gala was held Thursday on the sidelines of the Venice Film Festival by fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg to honor extraordinary women.  The former U.S. secretary of state noted that DuVernay – who is among this year’s DVF honorees – “became the first African American woman ever nominated for an Academy Award as director [for “Selma”]. “Yes, her visionary works about Black histories and experiences are more relevant today than ever,” Clinton added. But Clinton went on to further praise DuVernay for “opening doors not just for herself, but for so many others.”

If you ever questioned it before, let “Bardo” — wordily subtitled ‘or False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths,’ as was the director’s wont with 2014’s “Birdman” — lay your queries to rest: Alejandro Iñárritu really, really loves Fellini. He’s not the only one, naturally: comparisons to “8 ½” are par for the course whenever a filmmaker comes out with a notionally autobiographical work, as with Pedro Almodóvar’s “Pain and Glory” in 2019.

Ben Croll As Unifrance’s Daniela Elstner sees it, the wealth of talent in this year’s Venice slate imparts a good bill of health for the French industry writ large. “Today, festival directors look to France in a slightly different way,” Elstner says. “We can find eminences like Frederick Wiseman alongside [emerging talents] like Alice Diop. That’s the strength of a good selection: You need names, you need surprises, you need to mix it up.” Alongside Diop and Wiseman (whose “A Couple” is in French, if not a majority French production), this year’s Venice roster also includes “Other People’s Children” from Rebecca Zlotowski and “Our Ties” from Roschdy Zem — together forming a delegation perhaps more notable for the fact that none had competed in Venice before than for the almost incidental gender parity of the mix.

A woman prays in the woods. A bright bubblegum pink wig frames her closed eyes as she wishes for good clients, rustling leaves turned choir, sprawling branches turned pew.

Noah Baumbach passed through the Lido Wednesday afternoon where he broke down the origins of his Venice Film Festival opener White Noise, starring Adam Driver, Greta Gerwig, and Don Cheadle.

David Bowie is set to receive a stone on London's Music Walk of Fame in Camden. The late 'Starman' hitmaker - who died following a secret battle with cancer in 2016 aged 69 - will be honoured with the tribute on September 15 at Camden Town Tube station. The music legend's stone joins those for The Who, Soul II Soul, Madness, and late icon Amy Winehouse.