Eleven days of glamor and cinema, big stars and great artists. 79th Venice Film Festival, one of the 2-3 most important film festivals on the planet, opens its curtain today and we are getting ready to enter the well-known channels, with high hopes for an organization that, in its latest releases – before and after the pandemic – has given us the best recent films. Mostra is expected to rise to the appropriate high standards this year, judging by the “heavy” names who have chosen her to present their new work.

However, our calendar quickly filled up and, despite … the efforts of the organizers with the (unacceptably) cumbersome booking system, we will again see a lot of interesting things in Venice. First the opening film, Noah Baubach’s long-awaited White Noise; The American filmmaker, one of the hottest names in modern Hollywood, is casting his wife Greta Gerwig in the lead roles, as well as his friend Adam Driver, who is likely to garner most of his flashes on today’s red carpet. The film itself is described as a family saga that simultaneously deals with “the universal mysteries of life, death, and the hope of happiness in an uncertain world.” Classic Baubach, that is.

Of course, this is just… a warm-up. In the opening days of the festival, four-Oscar-winning Mexican Alejandro González Iñarritu will also arrive in Mostra to present the film Bardo, in which a renowned journalist and documentary maker returns home to face an existential crisis. Something tells us that there will be plenty of autobiographical elements here. These latter are in any case present in almost all the films of Luca Guantanino, another director who has seen his “stocks” rise in recent years. This time he brings with him Bones and All, a coming-of-age journey to Reagan America with stars like Timothée Salame, Mark Rylance, Chloë Sevigny and more.

The long-awaited film by Noah Baubach “White Noise” was the opening film of the festival.

At the Venice Lido, several directors who have touched us with their immediate previous works will take the next step: for example, Martin McDonagh, who, after the masterpiece “Three Signs on the Border of Ebbing, Missouri”, presents “The Banshee of Inisherin”, the story of two men (Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleason) collide on an isolated island off Ireland, and Frenchman Florian Zeller, who, after the triumph of Father, returns with Son, another family drama starring Hugh Jackman, Laura Derr and Vanessa Kirby. .

Of particular note is Jafar Panahi from Iran, who sent him to the No Bears festival shortly before his arrest for criticizing the country’s regime. On the contrary, the (natural) presence in Mostra will be provided by “The Whale” always interesting Darren Aronofsky, and stars such as Cate Blanchett (“Tar”), Penelope Cruz will grace the red carpet with their presence. (“L ‘Immencita’) and Ana de Armas (“Blonde”).

Finally, Greek cinema will also be presented in Venice, albeit more indirectly. The film by Romanian Mihai Minjan “To the North”, filmed (also) in our country, is a joint product of the Greek minority participating in the “Horizons” section. At the same time, Giulia Amati’s documentary “Christ, the last child” can be found in the Giornati degli Autori section.