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Jessica Chastain backs strikes as she closes political Venice fest

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Eric RANDOLPH, Agence France-Presse

<div class="embed-wrap"><figure data-feedback="fb:likes,fb:comments"><img alt="US actor Jessica Chastain (C) smiles as she arrives at the Lido Beach for the Venice International Film Festival, in Venice, Italy, September 8, 2023. Ettore Ferrari, EPA-EFE." src="https://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/2023/entertainment/09/09/20230909-jessica-chastain-epa.jpg"/><figcaption>US actor Jessica Chastain (C) smiles as she arrives at the Lido Beach for the Venice International Film Festival, in Venice, Italy, September 8, 2023. Ettore Ferrari, EPA-EFE.</figcaption></figure></div>VENICE, Italy -- Oscar-winner Jessica Chastain came to the Venice Film Festival Friday with a provocative new film, &quot;Memory&quot;, and an impassioned message in support of the Hollywood strikes by actors and writers.Chastain said she was &quot;incredibly nervous&quot; about attending the festival amid the weeks-long strikes over pay and concerns over the use of AI, which have brought Hollywood to a standstill.But actors were too often told &quot;to be quiet in order to protect future working opportunities&quot;, she said.&quot;That is the environment that has allowed workplace abuse to go unchecked for many decades and it&#x27;s also the environment that has saddled members of my union with unfair contracts,&quot; said Chastain, wearing a T-shirt supporting the unions.Several stars have been forced to skip Venice due to the strike, but Chastain&#x27;s new film, &quot;Memory&quot; was made outside the Hollywood studio system and so received an exemption from unions to allow promotional work.In her first role since winning an Oscar for &quot;The Eyes of Tammy Faye&quot; two years ago, Chastain plays a recovering alcoholic who falls for a man with dementia (Peter Sarsgaard).Variety said the film by Mexican director Michel Franco featured &quot;unforgettable performances&quot;, while The Hollywood Reporter praised the film as a &quot;laser-like drama about trauma and connection&quot;.<div>- Biopics trend -</div>Despite the lack of A-listers, the festival has seen some instant Oscar frontrunners and hard-hitting political dramas at its 80th edition, which concludes Saturday.Highlights from the 23 entries competing for the top prize Golden Lion include &quot;Poor Things&quot;, a feminist reworking of Frankenstein which made Emma Stone a shoo-in for award nominations with her hilarious and shockingly explicit turn as a sex-hungry reanimated corpse.So are Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan for their roles as conductor-composer Leonard Bernstein and his wife Felicia in Cooper&#x27;s elegant biopic, &quot;Maestro&quot;.Biopics were a thing this year: from Michael Mann&#x27;s long-awaited take on racing car impresario Enzo Ferrari starring Adam Driver and Penelope Cruz, to Sofia Coppola&#x27;s lauded &quot;Priscilla&quot; about the wife of Elvis Presley.<div>- Migrant tales -</div>The jury, led by writer-director Damien Chazelle (&quot;La La Land&quot;) and including Jane Campion and last year&#x27;s Golden Lion winner Laura Poitras -- all three Oscar winners -- may be swayed by more political entries.Critics have been impressed by two powerful migrant dramas.&quot;Io Capitano&quot; tells the epic and brutally powerful story of a Senegalese teenager crossing Africa to reach Europe, with newcomer Seydou Sarr wowing audiences in the central role.And &quot;Green Border&quot; offered a harrowing account of refugees trapped between Belarus and Poland during a real-life crisis on the EU border in 2021.The jury might wish to reward one of the odder entries, &quot;El Conde&quot; by Chile&#x27;s Pablo Larrain, which reimagines Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet as a blood-sucking vampire.At the more arthouse end of the spectrum was Bertrand Bonello&#x27;s &quot;The Beast&quot;, starring Lea Seydoux, a surreal era-jumping love story with touches of David Lynch that got strong reviews.The strong competition line-up helped distract from the controversy around the inclusion of Roman Polanski in the out-of-competition section.As a convicted sex offender, the 90-year-old director was already struggling to find distribution in the US and other countries for his slapstick comedy &quot;The Palace&quot;. The disastrous reviews at Venice will not have helped.Currently holding a resounding zero percent on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, it was variously described as a &quot;laughless debacle&quot; and &quot;soul-throttlingly crap&quot; by critics.Another director who has been effectively blacklisted in the US, Woody Allen, had a better time with his 50th film (and first in French), &quot;Coup de Chance&quot;, which was widely considered his best in at least a decade.<div>© Agence France-Presse </div>

Jessica Chastain came to the Venice Film Festival Friday with a provocative new film, 'Memory', and an impassioned message in support of the Hollywood strikes.

Jessica Chastain backs strikes as she closes political Venice fest

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Jessica Chastain backs strikes as she closes political Venice fest

Eric RANDOLPH,

Agence France-Presse

Published September 09, 2023 09:25 AM PHT

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Updated September 09, 2023 10:45 AM PHT

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film

movies

Venice Film Festival

Jessica Chastain

Hollywood strikes

Emma Stone

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