The Venice Film Festival is kicking off with the world premiere of Paolo Sorrentino’s “La Grazia” on Wednesday.
The 82nd version of the glamorous worldwide movie competition is enjoying host to many Hollywood stars, including George Clooney, Julia Roberts, and Dwayne Johnson, and famed auteurs, from Guillermo del Toro to Kathryn Bigelow, who all have movies debuting over the next 10 days.
The battle in Gaza has also already been an ever-present matter both outside the competition’s partitions, where protesters gathered, and during the information conferences.
The Venice Film Festival is kicking off with the world premiere of Paolo Sorrentino’s (pictured) “La Grazia” on Wednesday. REUTERS
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The competition, which takes place on the Lido, selected to open with the latest movie from one of Italy’s most revered working filmmakers. “La Grazia” stars Sorrentino’s longtime collaborator Toni Servillo as a fictional Italian president who is paralyzed by indecision close to the finish of his time period, grappling with signing a invoice that permits euthanasia and mourning his late spouse.
Sorrentino said that he was impressed to write the movie by a actual case of an Italian president who pardoned a man who had killed his spouse, who was struggling from Alzheimer’s. The title of the movie can be translated to “the pardon” in English, he said.
“This was a moral dilemma that was interesting to tell,” Sorrentino said. “I have thought for years that moral dilemmas are very interesting for storytelling.”
Venice Film Festival director Alberto Barbera advised The Associated Press that “La Grazia” took them by shock.
Anna Ferzetti attends the “La Grazia” photocall during the 82nd Venice International Film Festival on August 27, 2025 in Venice, Italy. Getty Images
George Clooney arrives at the Excelsior Hotel pier forward of the 82nd Venice International Film Festival 2025 on August 27. AbacaPress / SplashNews.com
“It’s a different Sorrentino from what we are used to,” Barbera said. “Far less baroque and formalistic than the previous films he made. It’s a very unexpected story.”
Sorrentino, best identified for his Oscar-winning movie “The Great Beauty,” made his debut at the Venice Film Festival 24 years in the past with the movie “One Man Up.” He also won the Silver Lion prize in 2021 for “The Hand of God,” which went on to be nominated for an Oscar. Many movies that premiere at Venice go on to Oscar nominations and wins.
“La Grazia” is one of the 21 movies enjoying in the competition’s foremost competitors. Other titles vying for the prestigious Golden Lion prize embrace del Toro’s “Frankenstein,” Bigelow’s “A House of Dynamite,” Yorgos Lanthimos’s “Bugonia,” Benny Safdie’s “The Smashing Machine,” and Kaouther Ben Hania’s “The Voice of Hind Rajab.”
Beatrice Valli and Marco Fantini at the Venice Film Festival. Anthony Harvey/Shutterstock
Adam Sandler arrives at the Excelsior Hotel pier forward of the 82nd Venice International Film Festival 2025 on August 27. AbacaPress / SplashNews.com
Winners are determined on by a jury of worldwide filmmakers and actors, including “Sideways” director Alexander Payne and Brazilian actor Fernanda Torres. Payne, who is president of this 12 months’s jury, said he arrived in Venice yesterday and was soon seated next to Francis Ford Coppola, watching a restoration of a Twenties silent movie.
“I thought, ‘I’m in heaven,” Payne said. “This is heaven.”
News about the actual world has also been high of thoughts at the competition, where steps away from the foremost headquarters, anti-war protesters gathered earlier Wednesday to flip the highlight to Gaza. A march is also deliberate for Saturday night.
Laura Dern arriving at the Venice Film Festival on Aug.27. AbacaPress / SplashNews.com
Martina Vergnano, an activist with the Social Centers of the Northeast, one of the protest organizers, said a whole bunch of associations, social facilities, and movie competition contributors had signed onto the petition to take part in the protest Saturday. Vergnano spoke in entrance of the pink carpet alongside about a dozen protesters flying Palestinian flags and holding a banner that learn: “Free Palestine, Stop the Genocide” with the time and date of Saturday’s protest.
There have been calls to disinvite actors like Gal Gadot and Gerard Butler from attending the competition for their views, but Barbera said that the competition does not boycott artists, nor does it make political statements.
Sorrentino, who lately called the state of affairs in Gaza a “genocide,” was requested about Mubi, the company that is distributing his movie. Mubi, the indie movie store behind last 12 months’s “The Substance,” has come under scrutiny because of funder Sequoia Capital’s ties to the Israeli army. The filmmaker redirected the flooring to “somebody from Mubi,” who declined to converse. A moderator redirected the dialog back to the movie.
Noomi Rapace attends the “Mother” pink carpet during the 82nd Venice International Film Festival on August 27, 2025, in Venice, Italy. Getty Images
President of the Venice Classics Section Tommaso Santambrogio attends the opening photocall during the 82nd Venice International Film Festival on August 27. Getty Images
Payne also confronted questions Wednesday afternoon about the battle and Hollywood’s accountability to handle it.
“I feel a little bit unprepared for that question,” Payne said. “I’m here to judge and talk about cinema.”
The competition runs through Sept. 6.
