Five years later “Joker” won top prize at the Venice Film Festival, filmmaker Todd Phillips is returning with the sequel. “Joker: Folie à Deux” will compete with 20 other titles, festival organizers said Tuesday.
The highly anticipated sequel to the hit comic book film stars Joaquin Phoenix as the mentally ill Arthur Fleck and Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn.
The program for the 81st edition of the festival, released on Tuesday morning, also includes new films starring Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Angelina Jolie, Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig and Jude Law.
Among the films competing alongside “Joker 2” are “Maria”, by Pablo Larraín, by Maria Callas, starring Jolie; “I’m Still Here”, by Walter Salles; the erotic thriller “Babygirl”, starring Kidman and Harris Dickinson, from filmmaker Halina Reijn; Luca Guadagnino’s adaptation of William S. Burrough’s “Queer,” with Craig and Jason Schwartzman; and Pedro Almodóvar’s first English film. language film, “The Room Next Door,” starring Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton Set in New England, the filmmaker said it is about a flawed mother and a resentful daughter.
“The Order,” Justin Kurzel’s 1980s-set crime thriller about the white supremacist group starring Law as an FBI agent, Nicholas Hoult and Jurnee Smollett, will also be in competition, as will “The Brutalist” by Brady Corbet, with Adrien Brody, Guy Pearce, Felicity Jones and Joe Alwyn. Shot in 70mm, the 215-minute epic is about a Hungarian Auschwitz survivor who comes to the United States.
Pitt and Clooney will reunite in Jon Watts’ “Wolfs,” an adrenaline-pumping action comedy about a few fixers who will be shown out of competition.
Several interesting films shown in the Horizons extra section include “September 5th”, about the live television coverage of the Munich Olympics, starring Peter Sarsgaard; “King Ivory” by John Swab, with Ben Foster and James Badge Dale; and Alex Ross Perry’s film about Stephen Malkmus’ California rock band Pavement.
Venice will also screen Peter Weir’s 2003 epic “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World” along with the Lifetime Achievement Award.
Seven episodes of Alfonso Cuarón’s psychological thriller series “Disclaimer” will also premiere at the festival. The AppleTV+ show is based on a novel about a documentary filmmaker and a secret she keeps. It stars Cate Blanchett and Kevin Kline and will premiere on the streamer in October.
Among the non-fiction titles out of competition are “One to One: John & Yoko”, which reconstructs the New York years of the Beatle and his wife; “Separated”, by Errol Morris, about the separation of immigrant children from their parents in the US; “Russians at War” by Anastasia Trofimova; “Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989”, by Göran Hugo Olsson; “Riefenstahl”, about the German propagandist; And another Beatles-focused document, “The Things We Said Today,” a time capsule about their arrival in New York and their first show at Shea Stadium.
Last year’s festival It happened in the midst of the actors’ strike. While some attended under tentative arrangements, like Adam Driver and Penelope Cruz for “Ferrari” and “Priscilla” stars Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi, the festival lacked the usual, consistent supply of star power. But the awards season’s influence remained strong: Seven world premieres at Venice garnered 24 Oscar nominations and five wins: four for “Poor Things” and one for Wes Anderson’s “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar.”
Venice is an important starting point for awards hopefuls and the first major stop in a busy autumn film festival season, with TorontoTelluride and the New York Film Festivals close behind.
The 81st edition begins on August 28th, with the world premiere of “Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice”, by Tim Burton. The entire main cast, including Michael Keaton, is expected to grace the red carpet. The Venice Film Festival runs until September 7th.
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