EXCLUSIVE: Distributor-producer Lucky Red is one of Italy’s most respected independent film and TV companies. Run by former actor Andrea Occhipinti since 1987, the firm has released more than 500 titles and produced more than 50 films.
01.09.2023 - 17:45 / deadline.com
The Venice Film Festival began August 30 with opening-night movie , an Italian World War II drama, kicking off a lineup for the venerable fest’s 80th edition that includes world premieres of Michael Mann’s Ferrari, Bradley Cooper’s Maestro, Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla, Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things, David Fincher’s The Killer, Ava DuVernay’s Origins, and new films from lightning-rod directors Roman Polanski, Woody Allen and Luc Besson.
Deadline is on the ground to watch all the key films. Below is a compilation of our reviews from the fest, which last year awarded Laura Poitras’ documentary All The Beauty and the Bloodshed its Golden Lion for best film.
Click on the film titles below to read the reviews in full, and keep checking back as we add more movies throughout the fest, which runs through September 9.
Section: Competition (Opening Night)
Director: Edoardo De Angelis
Cast: Pierfrancesco Favino, Massimiliano Rossi, Johan Heldenbergh, Silvia D’Amico, Arturo Muselli, Giuseppe Brunetti, Gianluca Di Gennaro, Johannes Wirix, Pietro Angelini, Mario Russo, Cecilia Bertozzi, Paolo Bonacelli
Deadline’s takeaway: Comandante is just fitfully entertaining, an adventure yarn about a local hero that will struggle to find audiences internationally.
Section: Competition
Director: Pablo Larraín
Cast: Jaime Vadell, Gloria Münchmeyer, Alfredo Castro, Paula Luchsinger
Deadline’s takeaway: The Count overflows with smart ideas and startling images that never seem gratuitous. It’s as if someone commanded Larraín and Calderón to amaze and astonish, and they willingly obliged.
Section: Competition
Director: Luc Besson
Cast: Caleb Landry Jones, Jojo T. Gibbs, Christopher Denham, Clemens Schick, Grace Palma
Deadline’s takeaway: There is nothing remote
EXCLUSIVE: Distributor-producer Lucky Red is one of Italy’s most respected independent film and TV companies. Run by former actor Andrea Occhipinti since 1987, the firm has released more than 500 titles and produced more than 50 films.
Penélope Cruz has secured her upcoming film. The beloved Spanish actress will star in an English-language adaptation of “The Days of Abandonment,” an Italian novel written by Elena Ferrante.
The tears flowed for Priscilla Presley following the world premiere of Sofia Coppola’s biopic, “Priscilla”, in Venice on Monday.
Priscilla Presley was all shook up at the Venice Film Festival premiere of “Priscilla.” The subject of Sofia Coppola’s drama wiped away tears from her face on Monday night in Italy as the audience on the Lido exploded in a 7-minute standing ovation for the A24 indie film. Coppola and Presley attended the premiere alongside Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi, who star as Priscilla and Elvis. The actors were granted a SAG-AFTRA waiver to promote the film amid the strike.
Fremantle kicked off its presence at the Venice Film Festival with a bang this year with the announcement of its new €150M ($162.7M) Scripted Fund forged in partnership with Israel-based IBI Investment House.
Woody Allen was given a rapturous reception as he hit the Venice Film Festival on Monday with his 50th film the French-language thriller Coup de Chance, which premieres Out Of Competition this evening.
Kate Beckinsale and Rita Ora both went dramatic with their red carpet looks at the 2023 amfAR Gala in Venice, Italy.
Sydney Sweeney embraced the Italian fashion scene at MiuMiu Women’s Tales.
The stars are stepping out in style!
Jacob Elordi is getting ready for the premiere of his new movie.
We’re back, Insiders. Jesse Whittock here. After a week away, we’ve got you covered for all the big news as festival season gears up once again. We’ve been mob-handed in Venice while diligently covering all the major TV and film news around the world. Let’s begin…
Caleb Landry Jones hits the red carpet with longtime girlfriend Katya Zvereva for the premiere of Dogman during the 2023 Venice Film Festival on Thursday (August 31) in Italy.
Michael Mann’s Ferrari received a 7 1/2-minute standing ovation Thursday night after the lights went up on the film’s world premiere screening at the Venice Film Festival.
Venice Film Festival, Adam Driver and Michael Mann officially kicked off awards season with the world premiere of their racing drama “Ferrari,” which debuted in competition. The packed house at the Sala Grande Theatre showered Drive and Mann with a six-minute-standing ovation. Driver fought back tears at the tragic conclusion of the film.
Adam Driver spoke at a Venice Film Festival press conference earlier today (Thursday), using his platform to criticize a number of major movie studios over their refusal to play by union rules. Driver is in Venice to promote his appearance in the upcoming Michael Mann movie, Ferrari.
Michael Mann would seem a perfect fit for a biopic of Italian motorsports legend Enzo Ferrari, himself being a master technician and a director working at the high end of his commercial craft. The result, though, is a strangely tame beast, an introspective look at an in-between moment in its subject’s life, when his business hit the rocks, his marriage all but imploded and a series of fatal accidents kept his name in the papers for all the wrong reasons.
Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic In Michael Mann’s heady, intricately dark, raptly absorbing “Ferrari,” there’s a quiet scene that takes place the night before the Mille Miglia, the spectacular 1,500-kilometer motorsport endurance race. Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver), the Italian sports-car magnate who needs to win the race (the survival of the company that bears his name depends on it), has five drivers who are scheduled to compete. In a kind of calm-before-the-storm ritual, several of them write notes to their romantic partners, telling them how much they love them, just in case they don’t survive the race.
Watching Michael Mann’s “Ferrari,” one may wonder whether it’s even possible to make a film about an Italian figure and have it not be at least 80% about style. An admittedly rather inane thought, but one made a little more legitimate by the central presence of Adam Driver as the titular Enzo Ferrari.
Adam Driver is speaking out about the ongoing SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes.
Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent It’s no secret that it’s taken decades of twists and turns in Hollywood to get Michael Mann’s anticipated “Ferrari,” which makes its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival Aug. 31, to the big screen. But what’s less known is that the journey of this biopic about Italian sports car builder and racing pioneer Enzo Ferrari originated with Italy’s storied Cecchi Gori Group before the company went bust.