Venice Film Festival 2018: Coen Brothers, Alfonso Cuaron, Julian Schnabel to Unveil New Work

“Suspiria,” “Roma” and “22 July” are among the movies set to premiere at the Italian fest next month

Suspiria Dakota Johnson
"Suspiria" / Amazon Studios

Luca Guadagnino’s “Suspiria,” Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma” and Paul Greengrass’ “22 July” will make their world premieres at the 2018 Venice International Film Festival, Venice organizers announced on Wednesday morning in Rome.

The Venice lineup is filled with premieres from notable international directors, also including Olivier Assayas (“Double Vies”), Yorgos Lanthimos (“The Favourite”), Jacques Audiard (“The Sisters Brothers”), Julian Schnabel (“At Eternity’s Gate”), Mike Leigh (“Peterloo”) and Laszlo Nemes (“Sunset”).

The Coen brothers will also be represented in the competition with “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” which began life as a proposed Western anthology series for Netflix, but has morphed into a single movie. A completed version of Orson Welles’ final, unfinished film, “The Other Side of the Mountain,” will screen as a special event, accompanied by Morgan Neville’s documentary about the project, “They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead.”

Venice previously announced that Damien Chazelle’s “First Man” will have its world premiere as the opening-night film and that Bradley Cooper’s “A Star Is Born” will also premiere at the festival.

Notable films in the competition lineup include “Call Me By Your Name” director Guadagnino’s “Suspiria,” a remake of the Dario Argento horror film from 1977; “At Eternity’s Gate,” Schnabel’s drama starring Willem Dafoe as Vincent Van Gogh and Oscar Isaac as Paul Gaugin; “Dogtooth” and “The Lobster” director Lanthimos’ 18th century drama “The Favourite,” starring Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone; and “Gravity” director Cuaron’s “Roma,” a black-and-white Spanish-language film set in Mexico City in the 1970s.

With the Venice announcement, “Roma” is set to blitz all four of the major fall film festivals: Venice, Telluride, Toronto and New York. (Telluride doesn’t announce its lineup until the day before it begins, but Toronto is billing “Roma” as a Canadian premiere, which means that it will screen elsewhere in North America – i.e., Telluride.)

Considering that Cannes wanted Cuaron’s film but Netflix refused to send any of its work to that festival because of Cannes’ ban on screening non-theatrical releases in competition, the fall-fest grand slam for “Roma” feels as if Netflix is trying to make a point about the streaming service’s place on the festival circuit.

Apart from the Orson Welles and Morgan Neville films (also Netflix properties that Cannes wanted), the out-of-competition section will include “A Star Is Born,” Pablo Trapero’s “La Quietud” and Zhang Yimou’s “Shadow.” The non-fiction segment of the non-competitive section will include celebrated documentary directors from America (Errol Morris with “American Dharma,” Frederick Wiseman with “Monrovia, “Indiana”) and around the world (Emir Kusturica with “Un Pepe, Una Vida Suprema,” Sergei Loznitsa with “Process”).

The Orrizonti section, devoted to adventurous films from around the world, will include Mary Harron’s “Charlie Says,” while the Scofini section will include an extended cut of Terrence Malick’s 2011 film “The Tree of Life.”

Venice is the first of the festivals that annually debut most of the films that will be competing for film awards. It opens on Aug. 29 and runs through Sept. 8, preceding but also overlapping both the Telluride and Toronto Film Festivals.

Three of the last four Oscar winners for Best Picture – “The Shape of Water” last year, “Spotlight” in 2015 and “Birdman” in 2014 – premiered in Venice.

The lineup was unveiled at a press conference at the Cinema Moderno in Rome.

The lineup:

VENEZIA 75 (MAIN COMPETITION)
“First Man,” Damien Chazelle (opening night)
“Acusada,” Gonzalo Tobal
“At Eternity’s Gate,” Julian Schnabel
“The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
“Capri-Revolution,” Mario Martone
“Double Vies,” Olivier Assayas
“Dragged Across Concrete,” S. Craig Zahler
“The Favourite,” Yorgos Lanthimos
“Freres Ennemis,” David Oelhoffen
“The Mountain,” Rick Alverson
“Napszallta” (“Sunset”), Laszlo Nemes
“The Nightingale,” Jennifer Kent
“Nuestro Tiempo,” Carlos Reygadas
“Peterloo,” Mike Leigh
“Roma,” Alfonso Cuaron
“The Sisters Brothers,” Jacques Audiard
“Suspiria,” Luca Guadagnino
“22 July,” Paul Greengrass
“Vox Lux,” Brady Corbet
“Werk Ohne Autor” (“Opera Senza Autore”), Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
“What You Gonna Do When the World’s On Fire?,” Roberto Minervini
“Zan” (“Killing”), Shinya Tsukamoto

OUT OF COMPETITION: SPECIAL EVENTS
“The Other Side of the Wind,” Orson Welles
“They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead,” Morgan Neville

OUT OF COMPETITION: NON FICTION
“L’Amica Geniale,” Saverio Costanzo
“Il Diaro Di Angela – Noi Due Cineasti,” Yervant Gianikian
“A Letter to a Friend in Gaza,” Amos Gitai
“Aquarela,” Victor Kossakovsky
“El Pepe, Una Vida Suprema,” Emir Kusturica
“Process,” Sergei Loznitsa
“Carmine Street Guitars,” Ron Mann
“Isis, Tomorrow. The Lost Souls of Mosul.,” Francesca Mannocchi, Alessio Romenzi
“American Dharma,” Errol Morris
“Introduzione All’Oscuro,” Gaston Solnicki
“1938 Diversi,” Giorgio Treves
“Ni De Lian” (“Your Face”), Tsia Ming-Liang
“Monrovia, Indiana,” Frederick Wiseman

OUT OF COMPETITION: FICTION
“Una Storia Senza Nome,” Roberto Ando
“Les Estivants,” Valeria Bruni Tedeschi
“A Star Is Born,” Bradley Cooper
“Mi Obra Maestra,” Gaston Duprat
“A Tramway in Jerusalem,” Amos Gitai
“Un Peuple et Son Roi,” Pierre Schoeller
“La Quietud,” Pablo Trapero
“Ying” (“Shadow”), Zhang Yimou

ORIZZONTI
“Sulla Mia Pelle,” Alessio Cremonini
“Kraben Rahu” (“Manta Ray”), Phuttiphong Aroonpheng
“Soni,” Ivan Ayr
“Ozen” (“The River”), Emir Baigazin
“La Noche de 12 Anos,” Alvaro Brechner
“Deslembro,” Flavia Castro
“Anons” (“The Announcement”), Mahmut Fazil Coskun
“Un Giorno All’Improvviso,” Ciro D’Emilio
“Charlie Says,” Mary Harron
“Amanda,” Mikhael Hers
“Yom Adaatou Zouli” (“The Day I Lost My Shadow”), Soudade Kaadan
“L’Enkas,” Sarah Marx
“Tchelovek Kotorij Udivil Vseh” (“The Man Who Surprised Everyone”), Natasha Merkulova, Aleksey Chupov
“Kucumbu Tubuh Indahku” (“Memories of My Body”), Garin Nugroho
“Hamchenan Ke Mimordan” (“As I Lay Dying”), Mostafa Sayyari
“La Profezia Dell’Armadillo,” Emanuele Scaringi
“Erom” (“Stripped”), Yaron Shani
“Jinpa,” Pema Tseden
“Tel Aviv on Fire,” Sameh Zoab

SCONFINI
“Blood Kin,” Ramin Bahrani
“Il Banchiere Anarchico,” Giulio Base
“Il Ragazzo Piu Felice Del Mondo,” Gipi
“Arrivederci Saigon,” Wilma Labate
“The Tree of Life” (Extended Cut), Terrence Malick
“L’Heure de la Sortie,” Sebastien Marnier
“Magic Lantern,” Amir Naderi
“Camorra,” Francesco Patierno

VENICE CLASSICS
“The Great Buster,” Peter Bogdanovich
“Women Making Films: A New Road Movie Through Cinema,” Mark Cousins
“Humberto Mauro,” Andre Di Mauro
“Living the Light – Robby Muller,” Claire Pijman
“24/25 Il Fotogramma in Piu,” Giancarlo Rolandi, Frederico Pontiggia
“Nice Girls Don’t Stay for Breakfast,”Bruce Weber
“Friedkin Uncut,” Francisco Zippel

Additional programming listed at the Venice Film Festival website.

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