Venice 2017 Line-Up Led By Darren Aronofsky, Guillermo Del Toro, George Clooney, William Friedkin & More

With the steady stream of blockbusters starting to dry up, fall festival season is fast approaching, and following big TIFF and NYFF announcements earlier in the week, Venice debuted their 2017 slate this morning. The Lido-based festival is one of our favorites, and while it’s sometimes existed in the shadow of Cannes, that’s begun to shift in recent years thanks to some killer lineups (Paul Thomas Anderson and Terrence Malick being among those who’ve debuted movies there), and a killer Oscar run – with “Gravity,” “Birdman,” “Spotlight” and “La La Land” all debuting there before going on to enormous awards season success.

Some educated guessing based on what Toronto is world-premiering or not has tended to spill the beans a bit, but even so, this is a tantalizing line-up, as ever. We knew for sure that Alexander Payne’s “Downsizing” would open the festival and, as expected, big movies including Guillermo Del Toro’s “The Shape Of Water,” George Clooney’s “Suburbicon,” Darren Aronofsky’s “mother!” and Martin McDonagh’s “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” are all Lido-bound.

Also cropping up in competition are a documentary called “Human Flow” from the great artist “Ai Weiwei,” Andrew Haigh’s “Lean On Pete,” Abdellatif Kechiche’s “Mektoub My Love” (at least the first part), “Lebanon” director Samuel Maoz’s “Foxtrot,” Paul Schrader’s “First Reformed” with Ethan Hawke, Warwick Thornton’s “Sweet Country” and a new Frederick Wiseman doc about the New York Public Library.

And in some sidebar sections are films including Lucrecia Martel’s long-awaited “Zama” (surprisingly out of competition), A24’s “Woodshock” with Kirsten Dunst, Netflix’s first Italian-language series “Suburra,” a short VR film from Tsai Ming-Liang, Isabelle Huppert in Anne Fontaine’s “Marvin,” Errol Morris’ Netflix docudrama miniseries “Wormwood” starring Peter Sarsgaard, Stephen Frears’ “Victoria & Abdul,” Michael Roskam’s “The Racer & The Jailbird,” S. Craig Zahler’s “Bone Tomahawk” follow-up “Brawl In Cell Block H” with Vince Vaughn, William Friedkin’s exorcism documentary “The Devil & Father Amorth” and a doc by “American Movie” helmer Chris Smith about Jim Carrey & Andy Kaufman.

It all kicks off on August 30th, and Jess will be on the Lido to bring you verdicts on the big hitters, so check back nearer to then. See the full line-up below.

Official Competition

HUMAN FLOW dir. Ai Weiwei
MOTHER! dir. Darren Aronofsky
SUBURBICON dir. George Clooney
THE SHAPE OF WATER dir. Guillermo Del Toro
L’INSULTE dir. Ziad Doueiri
LA VILLA dir. Robert Guediguain
LEAN ON PETE dir. Andrew Haigh
MEKTOUB MY LOVE: CANTO UNO dir. Abdellatif Kechiche
THE THIRD MURDER dir. Hirokazu Koreeda
JUSQU’A LA GARDE dir. Xavier LeGrand
AMMORE E MALAVITA dir. Manetti Bros
FOXTROT dir. Samuel Maoz
THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI dir. Martin McDonagh
HANNAH dir. Andrea Pallaoro
DOWNSIZING dir. Alexander Payne
ANGELS WEAR WHITE dir. Vivian Qu
UNA FAMILIGA dir. Sebastiano Riso
FIRST REFORMED dir. Paul Schrader
SWEET COUNTRY dir. Warwick Thornton
THE LEISURE SEEKER dir. Paolo Virzi
EX LIBRIS: THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY dir. Frederick Wiseman

Orrizonti

DISAPPEARANCE dir. Ali Asgari
ESPÈCES MENACEES dir. Gilles Bourdos
THE RAPE OF RECY TAYLOR dir. Nancy Buirski
CANIBA dir. Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Verena Paravel
LES BIENHEUREUX dir. Sofia Djama
MARVIN dir. Anne Fontaine
INVISIBLE dir. Pablo Giorgelli
BRUTTI E CATTIVI dir. Cosimo Gomez
THE COUSIN dir. Tzahi Grad
THE TESTAMENT dir. Amichai Greenberg
NO DATE, NO SIGNATURE dir. Vahid Jalilvand
LOS VERSOS DEL OLVIDO dir. Alireza Khatami
LA NUIT OU J’AI NAGE OYOGISUGITA YORU – Damien Manivel, Igarashi Kohei
KRIEG dir. Rick Ostermann
WEST OF SUNSHINE dir. Jason Raftopoulos
UNDER THE TREE dir. Hafsteinn Gunna Sigurdsson

Out Of Competition

OUR SOULS AT NIGHT dir. Ritesh Batra
CASA D’ALTRI dir. Gianni Amelio
MICHAEL JACKSON’S THRILLER 3D dir. John Landis
MAKING OF MICHAEL JACKSON’S THRILLER dir. Jerry Kramer
IL SIGNOR ROTPETER dir. Antonietta De Lillo
VICTORIA & ABDUL dir. Stephen Frears
LA MELODIE dir. Rachid Hami
OUTRAGE CODA – Takeshi Kitano
LOVING PABLO – Fernando Leon De Aranoa
WORMWOOD dir. Errol Morris
DIVA! dir. Francesco Patierno
THE RACER & THE JAILBIRD dir. Michael R. Roskam
IL COLORE NASCOSTO DELLE COSE dir. Silvio Soldini
THE PRIVATE LIFE OF A MODERN WOMAN dir. James Toback
BRAWL IN CELL BLOCK 99 dir. S. Craig Zahler
CUBA AND THE CAMERAMAN dir. Jon Alpert
MY GENERATION dir. David Batty
THE DEVIL AND FATHER AMORTH dir. William Friedkin
RYUICHI SAKAMOTA: CODA dir. Stephen Nomura Schible
JIM & ANDY: THE GREAT BEYOND. THE STORY OF JIM CARREY, ANDY KAUFMAN AND TONY CLIFTON dir. Chris Smith
THIS IS CONGO dir. Daniel McCabe
PIAZZA VITTORIO dir. Abel Ferrera
ZAMA dir. Lucrecia Martel

Cinema Nel Giardino

MANUEL dir. Dario Albertini
CONTROFIGURA dir. Rä Di Martino
WOODSHOCK dir. Kate Mulleavy, Laura Mulleavy
NATO A CASAL DI PRINCIPE dir. Bruno Oliviero
SUBURRAA – LA SERIE dir. Michele Placido, Andrea Molaioli, Giuseppe Capotondi
TUEURS dir. Francois Troukens, Jean-Francois Hensgens

Venice Classics

LIGHT YEARS dir. Manuel Abramovich
EVVIVA GIUSEPPE dir. Stefano Consiglio
THE PRINCE AND TEH DYBBUK dir. Elwira Niewiera
LA VOCE DI FANTOZZI dir. Mario Sesti
THIS IS THE WAR ROOM! dir. Boris Hars-Tschachotin

Biennale College Cinema

BEAUTIFUL THINGS dir. Giorgio Ferrero
MARTYR dir. Mazen Khaled
STRANGE COLOURS dir. Alena Lodkina

Special Presentations

LA LUNGA STRADA DEL RITORNO (1962) – dir. Alessandro Blasetti
BARBIANA ’65 LA LEZIONE DI DON MILANI – dir. Alessandro G.A. D’Alessandro
LIEVITO MADRE – LE RAGAZZE DEL SECOLO SCORSO – dir. Concita De Gregorino, Esmeralda Calabria