Jauhn Etienne Villaruel

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<div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:960px;display:block" width="960"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1788167625507Screen Shot 2026-08-31 at 12.36.36 PM (2).jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="960"/><span class="fr-inner" style="text-align:left">The Venice Film Festival kicks off Wednesday with few Hollywood productions but plenty of indie gems, heavy-hitting documentaries and A-listers.<em> Venice Film Festival program</em><br/></span></span></span></div><p>PARIS, France — The Venice Film Festival kicks off Wednesday with few Hollywood productions but plenty of indie gems, heavy-hitting documentaries and A-listers.</p><p>AFP picks the films, the issues and the personalities that are likely to attract the most attention during one of the world&#x27;s most glamourous film events, which runs until September 12.</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>MURDOCH BIOPIC </strong></div><div><br/></div><p>The festival and main competition starts with a promising opener by British &quot;Trainspotting&quot; and &quot;Slumdog Millionaire&quot; director Danny Boyle who is premiering his latest movie &quot;Ink&quot; about right-wing media tycoon Rupert Murdoch.</p><p>Australia-born Murdoch, the 95-year-old Fox News owner, has been the subject of several new biographies recently and a dramatisation of his family&#x27;s internal battles in hit HBO series &quot;Succession&quot;.</p><p>Boyle focuses on his arrival in the UK media industry in 1969 when he purchased The Sun tabloid.</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>&#x27;MUSK&#x27;</strong><strong><br/></strong><strong><br/></strong></div><p>Oscar-winning documentary maker Alex Gibney, whose previous films chronicled US military abuse and corruption, has turned his attention to the world&#x27;s richest man, Elon Musk.</p><p>&quot;Hit piece for sure. Gibney is incapable of anything else,&quot; the billionaire wrote on X last month of the nearly four-hour film titled &quot;Musk&quot;.</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>ROBERT PATTINSON </strong></div><div><br/></div><p>Robert Pattinson will be one of the biggest names on the Venice Lido this year, with the &quot;Batman&quot; and &quot;The Odyssey&quot; star appearing in &quot;Primetime&quot; by Lance Oppenheim.</p><p>It is based on the real-life story of American TV show &quot;To Catch a Predator&quot; that sought to expose pedophiles, with Pattinson set to play presenter Chris Hansen.</p><p>Hollywood favorite George Clooney will also add some stardust when he picks up a lifetime achievement Golden Lion award alongside Ellen Burstyn (&quot;The Exorcist&quot;,  &quot;Interstellar&quot;).</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>STUDIOS AND STREAMERS </strong></div><div><br/></div><p>American industry behemoths -- the Hollywood studios and streamers Netflix and Amazon -- turned up en masse in Venice in 2025 with a slate of pretty underwhelming movies.</p><p>They are skipping this year&#x27;s edition, extending a trend seen at Europe&#x27;s other two biggest film events in 2026, the Berlin and Cannes festivals, where they also shunned organisers.</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>INDIE AND ARTHOUSE </strong></div><div><br/></div><p>Hollywood&#x27;s absence will leave more attention and eyeballs for some of the strong independently produced movies on offer.</p><p>These include &quot;Wild Horse Nine&quot;, a dark comedy by Ireland&#x27;s Martin McDonagh starring John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell, &quot;Company&quot; by Casey Affleck, as well as &quot;Bucking Fastard&quot; by German veteran Werner Herzog, featuring sisters Kate Mara and Rooney Mara.</p><p>Two of Asia&#x27;s acclaimed filmmakers, Japan&#x27;s Hirokazu Koreeda and South Korea&#x27;s Lee Chang-dong, are also in the main competition with their latest &quot;Look Back&quot; and &quot;Possible Love&quot;.</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>MANCHESTER&#x27;S FINEST </strong></div><div><br/></div><p>The oft-feuding Oasis rock&#x27;n&#x27;roll brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher are set to light up the Lido to promote a documentary about their sold-out comeback tour last year.</p><p>&quot;Don&#x27;t Look Back in Anger&quot; promises a behind-the-scenes look at the Oasis mania sparked by the reunion, produced by Steven Knight, the creator of the &quot;Peaky Blinders&quot; series.</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>PALESTINE </strong></div><div><br/></div><p>A new documentary called &quot;NAZA&quot; from two of the directors of Oscar-winning Israeli-Palestinian production &quot;No Other Land&quot; is one of several films in Venice about Israel&#x27;s war in Gaza.</p><p>Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor explore Israel&#x27;s AI-assisted targeting systems in Gaza where an estimated 73,000 Palestinians have been killed since 2023, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.</p><p>Other documentaries on the conflict include &quot;Citizen Osama&quot; about a photojournalist in Gaza, while &quot;Road to Jericho&quot; by Israeli director Amos Gitai documents Jewish extremist settlers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>MEN&#x27;S CLUB </strong></div><div><br/></div><p>Venice supremo Alberto Barbera prompted a backlash by selecting just one film by a woman director in the initial 20-strong main competition announced in July -- the appropriately titled &quot;Woman Unknown&quot; by May El-Toukhy.</p><p>The quality of submissions from women directors &quot;was not enough to put them into the competition,&quot; he argued -- which led to an open letter from campaign and industry groups.</p><p>The late addition of &quot;NAZA&quot; improved the gender balanced very slightly -- it is co-directed by a woman.</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>SPANISH POWER COUPLE </strong></div><div><br/></div><p>For fans of Spain&#x27;s power couple Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem, French director Florian Zeller&#x27;s latest movie &quot;Bunker&quot; is a must-see.</p><p>The real-life couple, who got together on the set of &quot;Vicky Cristina Barcelona&quot; in 2008, play partners in a faltering marriage whose relationship is tested by a lucrative professional project for a billionaire played by Paul Dano.</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>© Agence France-Presse</strong></div><div><strong><br/></strong></div><div><strong>RELATED VIDEO</strong></div><div><span class="fr-video fr-deletable fr-fvc fr-dvb fr-draggable" contenteditable="false" draggable="true"><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gzsYx16tlMM?&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable"></iframe></span><br/></div>

<p>The Venice Film Festival kicks off Wednesday with few Hollywood productions but plenty of indie gems, heavy-hitting documentaries and A-listers.</p>

The Venice Film Festival kicks off Wednesday with few Hollywood productions but plenty of indie gems, heavy-hitting documentaries and A-listers.

Venice film preview: Clooney, Oasis and Musk

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Venice film preview: Clooney, Oasis and Musk

Adam Plowright,

Agence France-Presse

Published August 31, 2026 05:15 PM PHT

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