Poor Things
Yorgos Lanthimos has created one of the hottest tickets at Venice this year: a surreal science-fantasy based on the novel by Alasdair Gray. Emma Stone plays Bella, a young woman apparently brought back to life by hubristic scientist Dr Godwin Baxter, played by Willem Dafoe.
Hoard
British director Luna Carmoon makes her feature debut at Venice with this fiercely acted and compelling character study. Saura Lightfoot Leon plays Maria, a young woman who has grown up in care after a difficult relationship with her mother, played by Hayley Squires.
The Beast
A very strange and sensually disturbing disquisition with hints of Huxley and Ballard, about the past, present and future of humanity, on the point of being deconstructed by artificial intelligence. Léa Seydoux and George MacKay play a woman and man who meet during the Paris floods of 1910, the LA earthquake of 2014 and at a DNA-purification facility in 2044.
Maestro
Director-star Bradley Cooper has found himself in trouble for his “Jewface” prosthetics in the role of conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein, falling in love with Carey Mulligan’s Felicia Montealegre – but Cooper’s performance may yet convince the doubters.
Priscilla
Here is the other big biopic of Venice and for those who thought that Baz Luhrmann’s account of Elvis was too flashy and incurious, this may be a corrective – a study of his wife and great love Priscilla Beaulieu Presley, played by Cailee Spaeny with Jacob Elordi as Elvis. Sofia Coppola directs and co-writes with Priscilla herself.
The Killer
Michael Fassbender is back after a spell away, in this psychological action thriller directed by David Fincher and adapted from the French comic book series of the same name. Fassbender plays a professional hitman who is now being hunted down after a failed job.
Origin
Film-maker Ava DuVernay takes on the unfashionable subjects of class and caste in the United States in this drama which she has written, inspired by the nonfiction bestseller by journalist Isabel Wilkerson: Caste – The Origins of our Discontents. Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor stars as Wilkerson and Jon Bernthal as her husband Brett.
Green Border
Polish auteur Agnieszka Holland is another director who seems to be getting fiercer and more productive with age. This is a drama about the wily Belarusian tyrant and Putin courtier, Alexander Lukashenko, whose sly plan is to lure migrants to the “green border” dead zone between his country and Poland with the empty promise of easy passage to embarrass and put pressure on the EU and the west – a policy which destroys lives.
Ferrari
Adam Driver got mixed reviews for his Italian accent in Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci, but nonetheless he’s playing another Italian legend here for Michael Mann: the great F1 racer and alpha male Enzo Ferrari getting ready to turn his fortunes around by taking part in the dangerous and gruelling Mille Miglia road race.
Kobieta Z … (Woman of)
Polish auteur Małgorzata Szumowska takes on the conservatism of her country in this study of Adam, a conventional husband and father in a Polish small town, who starts to experience gender dysphoria.
