Venice Film Festival Unveils Star-Studded Line-Up: Opening with Sorrentino’s 'La Grazia'

Paolo Sorrentino’s latest film, La Grazia, is scheduled to open the 82nd Venice International Film Festival. The film, starring Toni Servillo and Anna Ferzetti, will have its world premiere on Wednesday 27 August in the festival’s prestigious Sala Grande.

Written and directed by Sorrentino, La Grazia remains largely under wraps regarding its plot. However, rumours suggest it focuses on the final days of a fictional Italian presidency.

Sorrentino is coming off a muted reception for his film Parthenope at last year’s Cannes, but he remains a formidable international talent. He won the Cannes Jury Prize in 2008 for Il Divo and received the Silver Lion for Best Director at Venice in 2021 for The Hand of God. His The Great Beauty also won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2014.

Here is a running list of films currently in contention for the festival:

• After the Hunt (Luca Guadagnino)
• One Battle After Another (PT Anderson)
• A House of Dynamite (Kathryn Bigelow)
• Jay Kelly (Noah Baumbach)
• The Way of the Wind (Terrence Malick)
• Bugonia (Yorgos Lanthimos)
• The Smashing Machine (Benny Safdie)
• No Other Choice (Park Chan-wook)
• Father Mother Brother Sister (Jim Jarmusch)
• The Ballad of A Small Player (Edward Berger)
• The Cry of the Guards (Claire Denis)
• Chocobar (Lucrecia Martel)
• Sacrifice (Romain Gavras)
• In the Hands of Dante (Julian Schnabel)
• Ann Lee (Mona Fastvold)
• Bucking Fastard (Werner Herzog)
• La Grazia (Paolo Sorrentino)
• An Affair (Arnaud Desplechin)
• Orphan (Laszlo Nemes)
• The Wizard of Kremlin (Olivier Assayas)
• Franz (Agnieszka Holland)
• Below the Clouds (Gianfranco Rosi)
• Duse (Pietro Marcello)
• Frankenstein (Guillermo del Toro)
• Couture (Alice Wincour)
• Gaza (Kaouther Ben Hania)