Venice’s Giornate degli Autori Marks 20th Edition With Céline Sciamma, Luca Guadagnino, Isabelle Huppert & Hiam Abbass; Heads Talk Line-Up & History

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter It’s another close race at the box office. The Warner Bros. thriller “The Nun II” is projected to ever-so-slightly outpace the competition with $14.7 million in its second weekend.

Sophia Scorziello editor “Selling Sunset” and “Selling the OC” real estate star Jason Oppenheim has signed on to Underscore Talent, where he will be represented by Austin Mayster and Megan Brown. “Jason has the golden touch when it comes to real estate and business,” said Mayster and Brown in a statement. “He has built a community of highly-engaged followers who he entertains and informs with his vibrant personality.

Mark Wright and Michelle Keegan have been having some changes made to their Essex mansion - but not before disagreeing over decoration choices.The couple, both 36, live in a mansion reported to be worth £3.5 million and have been showing off their extensive renovation with fans on Instagram. Mark has now revealed that the couple have made a change to their living room after the pair disagreed on whether things should be kept open plan or not.

Palestinian-French actress Hiam Abbass and her filmmaker daughter Lina Soualem touch down at the Toronto International Film Festival on Monday with documentary Bye Bye Tiberias.

Jennie Punter TORONTO: “Humanist Vampire,” “Solo” Heat Up Market for Toronto’s Quebec Feature Slate By Jennie Punter Toronto has long been a go-to place for Quebec filmmakers to launch new work, connect directly to the U.S. marketplace and, by extension, propel their careers to the next level — Denis Villeneuve, Phillippe Falardeau and Jean-Marc Vallée, for example, premiered most of their early films here.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Luca Guadagnino, whose Zendaya-starrer “Challengers” was pulled as Venice Film Festival opener due to complications from the SAG-AFTRA strike, is on the Lido wearing his producer hat on several films. One, especially close to his heart, is animation short “The Meatseller” by debuting director Margherita Giusti.

Canadian director Ariane Louis-Seize’s comedy-drama Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person has scooped the Director’s Award at Venice parallel section Giornate degli Autori.

Simone Biles and Jonathan Owens tied the knot in May 2023 and have been living long distance since shortly thereafter.

Carole Horst Capstone Global is selling “Don’t Move,” starring Kelsey Asbille (“Yellowstone,” “Fargo,” “Wind River”) and Finn Wittrock (“American Horror Story,” “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story,” “Ratched”). Capstone shared a first-look exclusive still of the horror thriller, which is currently in post-production, produced by Raimi Prods.

Ava DuVernay is making history today. In Venice with Origin, which world premieres in the Sala Grande this evening, she is the first African American female filmmaker to ever have been selected in competition at the world’s oldest festival. DuVernay earlier told Deadline’s Dominic Patten, “Venice was a big goal. It feels like a real full-circle moment.”

“That is the part where you look up and you say, ‘how could people have allowed their neighbors to be taken and put in the camps?’” says Origin director Ava DuVernay of the deep roots of discrimination and the cruel consequences of subjugation.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter Neon has acquired worldwide rights to Ava DuVernay’s “Origin” ahead of its world premiere in competition at the Venice Film Festival. The movie, starring Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Jon Bernthal, Niecy Nash-Betts, will also screen at the Toronto International Film Festival. “Origin” will be released in theaters later this year.

Neon has acquired worldwide rights for Ava DuVernay’s Origin ahead of its world premiere in Competition at the Venice Film Festival on Wednesday (September 6).

Guy Lodge Film Critic The mythology around Japan as a nation of everyday ghosts — where the living and the dead share space, occasionally in view of each other — can lead certain western filmmakers into dubious territory: If you don’t recall how Gus van Sant floundered with the mawkish, condescending exoticism of “The Sea of Trees,” trust that it’s best forgotten. Centered on a long-grieving Frenchwoman who finally makes peace with her husband’s death over the course of a Japanese work trip, “Sidonie in Japan” risks similar pitfalls — but Élise Girard’s droll, bittersweet romance mostly dodges them with grace and good humor, plus a pointed awareness of the limitations of its outsider perspective.

EXCLUSIVE: It’s a scorching 90 degrees in Rome at the end of July, but producer Lorenzo Mieli isn’t breaking a sweat.

The stars are stepping out in style!

The cast, producers and collaborators of Roman Polanski’s The Palace showed their support for the filmmaker here in Venice today during a press conference for the movie that world premieres out of competition this evening. 

A parent’s desire to trap their offspring in perpetual childhood is not a foreign concept to Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos, whose 2009 psychological drama “Dogtooth” chronicled the dysfunctional routine of a wealthy businessman, his meek wife, and their severely infantilized adult children.

EXCLUSIVE: Roman Polanski’s dark comedy The Palace has sold to a host of key territories ahead of its Venice premiere, with distributors getting behind the film in spite of the controversy surrounding the director. 

A 73m x 7m submarine was always going to be a left-field substitute for A-lister Zendaya after Luca Guadagnino’s hotly anticipated tennis movie Challengers was pulled from the Venice Film Festival’s prestigious opening-night slot. And although the gargantuan Cappellini is a formidable presence in Eduardo De Angelis’s 1940-set war drama, Comandante seems woefully out of its depth as a curtain-raiser to a festival still reckoning with the effects of the SAG strike.