Venice Lineup 2017: mother!, Bardem & Cruz, and more...

Fall Film Festival season is rapidly approaching. TIFF let us know their "special presentations" with many more announcements to come and now Venice (which actually starts sooner at the tail end of August) has announced its whole lineup. The films, including out of competition reunions of two iconic screen couples (Javier Bardem & Penélope Cruz / Jane Fonda & Robert Redford), are after the jump...

Official Competition
World premieres. This is the group vying for the Golden Lion which Annette Bening and jury will hand out.

• HUMAN FLOW dir. Ai Weiwei (Germany, 140 min)
  This is a documentary about the refugee crisis. Amazon Studios will distribute
• MOTHER! dir. Darren Aronofsky (USA, 120 min)
  Still shrouded in secrecy but we think maybe Javier Bardem is playing a cult leader or something?
• SUBURBICON dir. George Clooney (USA, 104 min)
  Trailer for this all star crime comedy -- which reveals too much if you ask me -- has just been released.
• THE SHAPE OF WATER dir. Guillermo Del Toro (USA, 119 min)
• L’INSULTE dir. Ziad Doueiri (France/Lebanon, 110 min)
• LA VILLA dir. Robert Guediguain (France, 107 min)
  
  Lean on Pete
• LEAN ON PETE dir. Andrew Haigh (UK, 121 min)
  Haigh only makes wonderful things (thus far) but this is quite a switch from his intimate romantic dramas like Weekend, Looking, and 45 Years. It's about a teenage boy (Charlie Plummer) and a stolen race horse
• MEKTOUB MY LOVE: CANTO UNO dir. Abdellatif Kechiche (France/Italy, 180 min)
  Kechiche can't help himself with the three-hour running times can he? You'll remember him from Blue is the Warmest Colour
• THE THIRD MURDER dir. Hirokazu Koreeda (Japan, 124 min)
  Koreeda has been on quite a roll with critics. His latest, a murder mystery, stars Fukuyama Masaharu, Yakusho Koji, and Hirose Suzu
• JUSQU’A LA GARDE dir. Xavier LeGrand (France, 90 min)
• AMMORE E MALAVITA dir. Manetti Brosm (Italy, 133 min)
  
  Foxtrot
• FOXTROT dir. Samuel Maoz (Israel/Germany, 113 min)
  Maoz previously directed that intense soldiers-inside-a-tank movie Lebanon . Foxtrot stars our favorite Israeli leading man Lior Ashkenazi as a father in distress when something goes wrong at his son's military post
• THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI dir. Martin McDonagh (UK, 110 min)
• HANNAH dir. Andrea Pallaoro (Italy/Belgium, 95 min)
• DOWNSIZING dir. Alexander Payne (USA, 140 min)
• ANGELS WEAR WHITE dir. Vivian Qu (China/France, 107 min)
• UNA FAMILIGA dir. Sebastiano Riso (Italy, 105 min)
• FIRST REFORMED dir. Paul Schrader (USA, 108 min)
  Amanda Seyfried and Ethan Hawke co-star in this grief drama
  
  on set of Sweet Country
• SWEET COUNTRY dir. Warwick Thornton (Australia, 112 min)
  A western with Aussie giants Sam Neill and Bryan Brown. Warwick Thornton's biggest success to date was Samson and Delilah which made it to the Oscar finals (but was not nominated) in Best Foreign Language Film in 2009
• THE LEISURE SEEKER dir. Paolo Virzi (Italy, 112 min)
  This is Virzi's first English language feature and stars Helen Mirren and Donald Sutherland as a retired couple travelling in their RV
• EX LIBRIS: THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY dir. Frederick Wiseman (USA, 197 min)
  Another expansive doc from Wiseman who never met a long running time he didn't like!

Orrizonti
This section focuses on latest aesthetic and expressive trends in world cinema

• Disappearance
  DISAPPEARANCE dir. Ali Asgari (Iran/Qatar, 89 min)
• ESPÈCES MENACEES dir. Gilles Bourdos (France/Belgium, 105 min)
• THE RAPE OF RECY TAYLOR dir. Nancy Buirski (USA, 91 min)
  This movie is about sexual violence in the Jim Crow south. Recy Taylor was gang raped in 1944. Her story helped spark the civil rights movement. Buirski previously directed the documentary The Loving Story which inspired the Oscar nominated feature Loving. 
• CANIBA dir. Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Verena Paravel (France, 90 min)
• LES BIENHEUREUX dir. Sofia Djama (France/Belgium, 102 min)
  
  Marvin
• MARVIN dir. Anne Fontaine (France, 115 min)
  French drama starring the young Finnegan Oldfield (who was in Bang Gang: A Love Story). Co-stars Isabelle Huppert and Charles Berling though I'm not sure of their roles (parents?)
• INVISIBLE dir. Pablo Giorgelli (Argentina/Brazil/Uruguay, 87 min)
• BRUTTI E CATTIVI dir. Cosimo Gomez (Italy/France, 87 min)
• THE COUSIN dir. Tzahi Grad (Israel, 92 min)
• THE TESTAMENT dir. Amichai Greenberg (Israel/Austria, 91 min)
• NO DATE, NO SIGNATURE dir. Vahid Jalilvand (Iran, 104 min)
• LOS VERSOS DEL OLVIDO dir. Alireza Khatami (France/Germany, 92 min)
• LA NUIT OU J’AI NAGE OYOGISUGITA YORU – Damien Manivel, Igarashi Kohei (France/Japan, 79 min)
  
  
  
  
• NICO, 1988 dir. Susanna Nicchiarelli (Italy/Belgium, 93 min)
  The great Danish actress Trine Dyrholm (The Commune) leads this cast as the title character, the famous singer Nico. But this movie is not about her Warhol and Velvet Underground years but her last tour in the 1980s as an older less famous woman
• KRIEG dir. Rick Ostermann (Germany, 93 min)
• WEST OF SUNSHINE dir. Jason Raftopoulos (Australia, 78 min)
• UNDER THE TREE dir. Hafsteinn Gunna Sigurdsson (Iceland/Denmark, 89 min)
  This is the first Icelandic film ever playing in the Orizzonti sidebar. Plot unknown
• LA VITA IN COMUNE dir. Edoardo Winspeare (Italy, 110 min) 

Out Of Competition

• OUR SOULS AT NIGHT dir. Ritesh Batra (USA, 101 min)
  A romantic drama reuniting iconic co-stars Jane Fonda and Robert Redford
• IL SIGNOR ROTPETER dir. Antonietta De Lillo
• VICTORIA & ABDUL dir. Stephen Frears
• LA MELODIE dir. Rachid Hami (France, 102 min)
• OUTRAGE CODA dir. Takeshi Kitano (Japan, 104 min)
  
  
  
  
• LOVING PABLO dir. Fernando Leon De Aranoa (Spain/Bulgaria, 123 min) 
  Javier Bardem + Penélope Cruz onscreen together alert! The director's most famous film to date was the Spanish film Mondays in the Sun with Bardem. This is based on the memoir "Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar" about the journalist and socialite Virginia Vallejo (Cruz) and her affair with "The King of Cocaine" Pablo Escobar (Bardem)
• WORMWOOD dir. Errol Morris (USA, 300 minutes... TV series)
• DIVA! dir. Francesco Patierno (Italy, 75 min)
• THE RACER & THE JAILBIRD dir. Michael R. Roskam (Belgium, ? min)
  Matthias Schoenaerts is the jailbird reuniting with his Bullhead director for this crime drama romance. Adèle Exarchopoulos is the racer
• IL COLORE NASCOSTO DELLE COSE dir. Silvio Soldini
• THE PRIVATE LIFE OF A MODERN WOMAN dir. James Toback (USA, 71 min)
  Sienna Miller headlines
• BRAWL IN CELL BLOCK 99 dir. S. Craig Zahler (USA, 132 min)
  Starring Vince Vaughn, Don Johnson, Udo Kier, and Jennifer Carpenter
• CUBA AND THE CAMERAMAN dir. Jon Alpert (USA, 113 min)
• MY GENERATION dir. David Batty (UK, 85 min)
  This documentary is narrated by Michael Caine
• THE DEVIL AND FATHER AMORTH dir. William Friedkin (USA, 68 min)
  Documentary about an exorcist 
• RYUICHI SAKAMOTA: CODA dir. Stephen Nomura Schible (USA/Japan, 100 min)
• JIM & ANDY: THE GREAT BEYOND. THE STORY OF JIM CARREY, ANDY KAUFMAN AND TONY CLIFTON dir. Chris Smith (USA/Canada, 90 min)
  One assumes this documentary has something to do with the making of the Kaufman biopic Man on the Moon
• THIS IS CONGO dir. Daniel McCabe (Congo, 91 min)
  A documentary about the M23 rebellion in the Democratic Republic of Congo
• PIAZZA VITTORIO dir. Abel Ferrera
• ZAMA dir. Lucrecia Martel (Argentina/Brazil, 115 min)
  Martel is a critical darling and she has a fine cast assembled for this including Almodovar alums Lola Dueñas and Daniel Giménez Cacho. Will it be Argentina's Oscar submission? 

Cinema Nel Giardino
"Films, talks, and visions" is how they describe this sidebar

• MANUEL dir. Dario Albertini (Italy, 97 min)
• CONTROFIGURA dir. Rä Di Martino (Italy/France/Morocco, 75 min)
• WOODSHOCK dir. Kate Mulleavy, Laura Mulleavy (USA, 116 min)
  Kirsten Dunst and Pilou Asbaek star
• NATO A CASAL DI PRINCIPE dir. Bruno Oliviero (Italy/Spain, 96 min)
• SUBURRAA – LA SERIE dir. Michele Placido, Andrea Molaioli, Giuseppe Capotondi (Italy, 100 min)
• TUEURS dir. Francois Troukens, Jean-Francois Hensgens (Belgium/France, 86 min)

Comments

[Edward L.]

Thank you so much for this round-up. Venice sounds especially fantastic this year.

[Aaron]

I need a trailer for mother! ASAP

[Hayden]

Weird—Michelle Pfeiffer's latest auteur project debuts alongside a film with "Malavita" in the title! Working titles never leave my mind. I still think of Rachel Getting Married as "Dancing With Shiva" but a rose by any other name...

[Mareko]

Dancing With Shiva, LOL. I remember that! Malavita is a MUCH better title than The Family (zzz), as is My Posse Don't Do Homework in lieu of Dangerous Minds. (In fact, "working titles" would make a very interesting post all-around—I'm sure Cop Gives Waitress $2 Million Tip would end up on it.)

[Glenn Dunks]

My most anticipated are not the Aronofsky or the Clooney or the del Toro or even the Haigh, which sounds very vanilla for him, but I'm sure it'll still be good.

No, the titles I am most excited for are the Wiseman doc because he's a freakin' legend and he is on a killer role lately, the Warwick Thornton because it's his first narrative feature since SAMSON & DELILAH (he's made a couple of really great experimental stuff and documentaries and continued as a cinematographer) and I'm glad it's getting the reverence that it deserves, and the Xavier Legrand whose Oscar nominated short remains one of the best the Academy has nominated in *years* so I am excited for a feature (and a brisk 90 minute one at that!)