Venice Film Festival Opener ‘Comandante,’ Starring Pierfrancesco Favino, Boarded by True Colours (EXCLUSIVE)

The Venice Film Festival is an opportunity to showcase new projects to an audience, and that can be an emotional experience.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Triple Oscar nominee Agnieszka Holland’s “Green Border,” which will premiere in competition at the Venice Film Festival, before going onto Toronto Film Festival and New York Film Festival, has sold to multiple territories. Variety has been granted access to an exclusive clip from the film, and Holland’s notes on the production, which we quote from below, again exclusively.

The Venice Film Festival is upon us again, and we can’t believe it. While we are a little sad that it means that summer is winding down, the positive is that it implies that audiences everywhere are about to have a treasure trove of sure-to-be spectacular films to look forward to.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent The Venice Film Festival will host a Ukrainian Day on Sept. 6 with a series of panels and meetings to support war-torn Ukraine and its film industry.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor “Evil Does Not Exist,” the new film by the Oscar-winning auteur Ryūsuke Hamaguchi, has sold to several additional territories. The film will world premiere in competition at the Venice Film Festival, will have its North America premiere as a special presentation at Toronto, and will go on to screen at New York and San Sebastian. Hamaguchi received Oscar nominations last year for directing and adapted screenplay, shared with Takamasa Ôe, for “Drive My Car.” The film was also nominated in the best picture category and won the international feature film Oscar.

The 2023 Venice Film Festival is just weeks away and there are still conversations about who will actually be attending the annual event.

The 2023 Venice Film Festival is just weeks away and there are still conversations about who will actually be attending the annual event.

EXCLUSIVE: There has been mystery for weeks over which Hollywood talent will attend the Venice Film Festival amid the two strikes but the clouds are finally starting to lift.

Netflix has a slew of intriguing titles getting their world premiere at the Venice Film Festival soon, including David Fincher‘s “The Killer,” Bradley Cooper‘s “Maestro,” and Pablo Larráin‘s “El Conde.” But don’t sleep on J.A. Bayona‘s “Society Of The Snow,” tapped as the festival’s closing night film.

Priscilla has been granted a very special SAG-AFTRA interim agreement.

EXCLUSIVE: Troy Kotsur, the Oscar-winning star of CODA, will open the inaugural edition of the Little Venice Film Festival.

Manori Ravindran Executive Editor of International The Venice Film Festival is rolling out a juried impact award that will mark the first time a major film festival has awarded a prize focused solely on impact. Impact campaigns are crafted around documentaries and some narrative films that have strong social or political messages that can inspire action among audiences and the industry at large.

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor Oscar-nominated filmmaker Ava DuVernay will be honored by international AIDS organization amfAR with its Award of Inspiration during the Venice Film Festival on Sept. 3. The black-tie gala and dinner, taking place at La Misericordia, will include performances by singers Rita Ora and Leona Lewis.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Italian producer Andrea Iervolino, whose credits include Michael Mann’s “Ferrari,” “Waiting for the Barbarians” and “Tell It Like a Woman,” has invested around 50 million euros ($55 million) in the construction of Tuscany Film Studios, a technologically advanced studio with the largest virtual set in Italy, and a 360 studio for live-action productions. The production facility, which is being built just outside Florence, will also host a movie theater and luxury hotel with the aim of attracting premium international productions to Italy.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Prime Video has acquired the Ancient Rome gladiator drama series “Those About to Die” in multiple European territories. The show is directed by “Independence Day” helmer Roland Emmerich and Marco Kreuzpaintner. The 10-episode first season will debut exclusively on Prime Video in Germany, the U.K., France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, Ireland, Poland, Turkey, Andorra, Monaco, Luxembourg and Belgium.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Berlin-based sales agent Pluto Film has boarded “Forever-Forever” (“Nazavzhdy-Nazavzhdy”), Ukrainian filmmaker Anna Buryachkova’s feature directing debut, ahead of its world premiere in Venice Film Festival’s Horizons Extra competition. After transferring from a downtown high school, Tonia (Alina Cheban) befriends a group of badass youngsters, trying to find protection from the people from her past and a place she truly belongs. They spend time together, roaming around Kyiv’s post-socialist suburbs, having fun and getting in trouble.

While SAG-affiliated actors may not be on the Lido for the Venice Film Festival at the end of the summer, two filmmakers with less than stellar reputations will be: Woody Allen and Roman Polanski. Venice creative director Albert Barbera said he doesn’t “see where the issue is” for both filmmakers bring their new films to the festival, albeit out of competition.

It’s been three years since Woody Allen‘s last film, “Rifkin’s Festival,” which came and went without much fanfare, even with the COVID-19 pandemic going on. And at age 87, many didn’t expect Allen to keep working post-pandemic.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent An underhanded move by members of Italy’s right-wing government to try and take over the management of Rome’s Centro Sperimentale Film School is prompting an uproar by its students and a strong show of support from the country’s top directors. Earlier this week, students of the Centro Sperimentale — which is the oldest film school in the world, and among the finest — staged a demonstration in front of the country’s parliament just as a piece of legislation that would change the school’s management was swiftly being approved by a parliamentary committee.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Beta Film has sold more than 100 hours of drama series to PBS Distribution-backed Walter Presents for the U.S., and Channel 4-backed Walter Presents for the U.K. Five seasons of Italy’s gritty crime series “Rocco Schiavone” as well as Canadian mystery dramas “The Wall – The Chateau Murder” and “The Wall – The Orchard” will be available in both territories.