Venice 2024: Series Better Than Movies #1 - Disclaimer

by Elisa Giudici

Alfonso Cuarón, behind the scenes of DISCLAIMER | © Apple TV+

From the moment the Venice lineup was announced, it was clear that this year, the festival was betting heavily on TV. The impression was that the quality was high enough to justify their inclusion and the commitment to watch long episodes, even at the expense of film screenings. Early viewings have confirmed this prediction. In these diaries from the Lido, I can already tell you that at least two series will make headlines. The first one is:

DISCLAIMER by Alfonso Cuarón

When it comes to TV series, Alfonso Cuarón proves to be the dream director for a platform like Apple TV+…

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Venice Diary: Ghosts in Mostra

This year, Elisa is once again covering the Venice Film Festival for The Film Experience, writing a daily diary of her cinematic experiences from the Lido. The two opening films that inaugurated the 81st edition—one from the main competition and the other from the Orizzonti section—create a surprising and unexpected dialogue.

BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE (2024). Credit: Warner Bros Entertainment Inc)

by Elisa Giudici

BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE by Tim Burton
Gossip has revealed that much has changed recently in Tim Burton's personal life. He has a new woman by his side, both personally and professionally and a young muse who perfectly embodies his signature gothic aesthetic. Surprisingly, this shift has had a positive impact on Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the sequel that, 36 years after the original, finds a legitimate reason to exist. It’s moderately entertaining, offers some successful sequences, and proves itself more than worthy of opening the 81st Venice Film Festival...

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Yes No Maybe So: "Joker: Folie à Deux"

by Nick Taylor

Remember the fucking hubbub around Joker when it premiered at Venice back in 2019? Stephanie Zachareck fearing MRA riots? Lucrecia Martel giving it the Golden Lion? Leading the Oscar nominations with a whopping eleven citations, with Mark Friedberg’s incredible sets somehow left out in the cold? Winning Best Actor for Joaquin Phoenix and Original Score for Hildur Guðnadóttir? Wild times!

Although Joker: Folie à Deux was first announced roughly two years ago, it feels as though the spectre of it has been haunting us for so much longer. At long last, the sequel is on its way, in just over two months. The first full-length trailer dropped less than 24 hours ago, and we here at The Film Experience are ready to dig in to whatever the hell is going on...

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Venice Main Competition Round-Up (plus London and NYFF Openers)

by Nick Taylor

BLITZ (2024) Steve McQueen

So many film festivals the past few days have come to make an announcement! Steve McQueen’s Blitz, about Londoners trying to survive a bombing during WWII starring Saoirse Ronan and Harris Dickinson, has been named the opening film for the London Film Festival. Meanwhile, the New York Film Festival will open with Nickel Boys, an adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel helmed by Hale County This Morning, This Evening director RaMell Ross.

A lot of films have been announced for TIFF, and will presumably keep being announced until the festival starts in September. We’ve also received word of the full lineup for the 81st Venice Film Festival, and since they’ve got much fewer releases than TIFF, I’ll be doing a quick run-down of which titles are most exciting to me personally. While I won’t be able to attend Venice, you can still see me watching them take off from the sidelines, like a 20th century mother waving to her children as they set sail on a voyage to a new country, hoping for the absolute best but steeling myself to be strong, just in case of disaster...

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Festival News: Huppert Presides in Venice, Rasoulof Imprisoned, and more…

by Cláudio Alves

In 1988, Isabelle Huppert won the first of two Venice Volpi Cups, for Chabrol's STORY OF WOMEN.

As Cannes approaches, a barrage of festival news has hit film lovers worldwide. From celebratory to tragic, many of these stories aren't even about the Croisette, signaling how 2024 is entering the festival season full throttle. For example, Isabelle Huppert has been announced as the Jury President for this year's Venice, provoking traumatic flashbacks to whoever still remembers her Cannes presidency in 2009. According to rumor, the French thespian was an absolute tyrant, imposing her will over the other jurors to award frequent collaborator Michael Haneke with his first Palme d'Or. Fellow juror James Gray infamously described her as a "fascist bitch."

Following Lupita Nyong'o in Berlin and Gerwig in Cannes, Huppert's announcement makes 2024 the first year when all the big three European Film Festivals chose women as their Main Competition Jury Presidents…

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