The Venice Film Festival, which typically sees Hollywood A-listers travel by boat to the little island of Lido every September, has arrived. This year, the 10-day red carpet event will host the likes of George and Amal Clooney, Penélope Cruz, Robert Pattinson and Patrick Schwarzenegger and more in their formal finest. Some films will be watched too.
The festival has long been a glamorous affair, but it has recently become a major platform for fashion news, fueling the industry marketing machine: Last year, Julia Roberts lent Amanda Seyfried her Dario Vitale Versace suit, Ayo Edibiri made her Venice debut in a custom red strapless dress by Chanel that teased Matthieu Blazy’s new direction, and Greta Lee did the same for Jonathan Anderson’s Dior.
The event has come to be seen as an early finger in the wind ahead of the Oscars. This year, the movies in the running for the Golden Lion prize are deep, dark and, politically charged. Danny Boyle’s “Ink” – an adaptation of the acclaimed play about the early years of Rupert Murdoch (Guy Pearce) and his acquisition of London tabloid paper “The Sun” – kicked off the festival on its opening night. Werner Herzog’s “Bucking Fastard,” with sisters Kate and Rooney Mara who fall in love with the same man (Orlando Bloom), followed; as well as Florian Zeller’s “Bunker,” in which real-life partners Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem play a couple whose marriage becomes strained after the husband agrees to build a survivalist bunker for a tech billionaire.
However, the lineup has drawn criticism for its lack of female directors — this year just two films, May el-Toukhy’s “Woman Unknown” and Rachel Szor’s “NAZA,” directed by women are in the main competition for the grand prize.
“There’s a systemic problem. It’s much harder for women to get their films financed,” said director Maggie Gyllenhaal, the jury president for this year’s festival. “Who decides what’s good and valuable?” Gyllenhaal is also screening a short Marilyn Monroe biopic starring Dakota Johnson and Ellen Burstyn, though it’s not competing.
With just a handful of Hollywood stars set to grace the carpet, there’s reason to believe the fashion on show might skew considered and cerebral. But with musicians like Phoebe Bridgers as well as Liam and Noel Gallagher expected to make an appearance — the Gallagher brothers are rarely seen on a red carpet, let alone together — there’s still plenty to look forward to.
