Venice and Toronto Film Festivals Spark Oscar Buzz | Vanity Fair
Every July, we get our first sneak peek at some of the films that will debut this coming Oscar season. On Monday, the Toronto International Film Festival announced much of its main lineup, followed quickly on Tuesday by the Venice International Film Festival’s own star-studded lineup—and with a little detective work by the Awards Insider team, we can also use these announcements to deduce which films will have their world premieres at the Telluride Film Festival.
When a studio forks over the money and effort for a festival debut, it’s a strong indicator that it believes it may have a contender on its hands. Any of these films could have a strong awards season campaign—though every year, a few such movies see their hopes quickly dashed by terrible reviews or a tepid audience response. Here, we examine the fall festival lineups and parse out which films might soar and surprise, and which might be gambles that don’t pay off.
Rebecca Ford: I guess we should start with the biggest film of the day, David, which is Joker: Folie à Deux. The sequel was announced as part of the lineup for the Venice Film Festival, where it’ll have its debut. No surprise there: Todd Phillips’s first Joker film premiered at Venice almost five years ago and won its top prize, the Golden Lion. That set it up for a strong awards season run, with 11 Oscar nominations (including best picture) and two wins (best actor for Joaquin Phoenix and best score).
It looks like Warner Bros. hopes to do something similar with this sequel, which is a musical and also stars Lady Gaga. So that makes for another piece of good news: We get to see Gaga back on a boat, one of my favorite images from the year A Star Is Born premiered there. Speaking of which, the Venice lineup seems really star-studded to me. Some of these big names weren’t on my radar, and some of their films may, in the end, be too commercial for awards season. What sticks out to you about the Venice lineup, David?
David Canfield: The Joker sequel had been all but confirmed for Venice—announcing a trailer debut for the day of the festival lineup announcement…hmm—and you’re right, that decision shows Warner Bros. planting a pretty firm “let’s do it again!” flag here. You have a few other studios staking similar claims: Sony Pictures is doing for Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door what it did for the director’s last movie, Parallel Mothers, which launched a successful campaign for Penélope Cruz on the Lido. A24 has intriguingly positioned Bodies Bodies Bodies director Halina Reijn’s follow-up, the erotic thriller Babygirl, at Venice; between The Whale and Priscilla, that festival has been a great commercial launchpad for that studio of late. So yes, all intriguing there.
But I have to say, I’m more struck by the titles that are still seeking distribution, ones that could—if they land in a major way—really shake up the end-of-year calendar and awards season. You and I have both heard rumblings about this being a relatively quiet fall season, which means there’s room for expansion on a few slates. And in this Venice lineup, the buzz has been deafening around both Luca Guadagnino’s Queer, an ambitious adaptation starring Daniel Craig, and Pablo Larraín’s Maria, said to feature a superb Angelina Jolie as the opera singer Maria Callas. These filmmakers tend to deliver—hell, Guadagnino already has a contender this year in Challengers—and both movies have the ingredients to be something special. But are studios in the mood to roll the dice this year?
Ford: That’s a good question, David. I often feel like a quick acquisition at Venice, on the eve of awards season, can be a risk because, as we’ve both seen before, festival hype doesn’t always last. At any festival (but I think especially Cannes and Venice), films often get intense applause and praise—but when they’re actually released a few months later, they are met with confusion and raised eyebrows. There weren’t a lot of splashy buys last year (Netflix bought Hit Man, but that wasn’t an awards play in the end), though I do agree that the films you’ve mentioned feel like they could be hot commodities this year.
In addition to Jolie and Gaga, quite a few other A-listers are set to be seen on the Lido this year, and perhaps we’ll be following them to awards season. As you mentioned, Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door, his first English-language feature film, stars Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton. Nicole Kidman stars in the erotic thriller Babygirl opposite rising star Harris Dickinson, and we can expect to see Brad Pitt and George Clooney reunite thanks to Jon Watts’s Wolfs. It’s an action comedy and screening out of competition, so that to me feels more like a “let’s get these big stars here” play and less like a serious Oscar contender. After last year’s muted festival due to the actors and writers strikes, it’ll be fun to see so many sunglasses-clad stars out and about in Venice this year.
Canfield: Wolfs felt so TIFF—a big, star-studded fall movie that’s not exactly gunning for best picture and plays great to a crowd—that its presence here and not on the Toronto lineup is throwing me. But perhaps this is as good a point as any to transition to the Canadian festival, which last year debuted a major contender in American Fiction.
Last year’s TIFF was a strange affair that also left room for some intriguing discoveries. Nobody was talking about Sing Sing or His Three Daughters going into the festival, but after splashy pickups by A24 and Netflix, respectively, they’re both Oscar contenders this cycle. There are so many mystery titles on a given Toronto list that it’s impossible to say which of those will break out, but in addition to the major titles we’re about to get into, it’s worth remembering the smaller gems premiering between them.
But oh, what major titles! We debuted a first look at Conclave last week. That movie, directed by All Quiet on the Western Front’s Edward Berger and starring Ralph Fiennes, is now officially set for a prime TIFF slot (and presumably, based on the language TIFF used to announce it, a Telluride world premiere). The pedigree on this one is very high. Similarly positioned is Netflix’s The Piano Lesson, directed by Denzel Washington’s son Malcolm, starring his other son, John David, and featuring Samuel L. Jackson and Danielle Deadwyler in plum roles for awards consideration. (This one also appears to be going to Telluride.) The most exciting true world premiere for me, which was announced a little further back, remains the Amy Adams vehicle Nightbitch, directed by the great Marielle Heller. Although, now that TIFF has confirmed that the Naomi Watts drama The Friend will be screening at the festival as well, I’m thrilled to report we’ll have dueling art house dog movies, ones adapted from acclaimed books and starring Oscar-nominated actors How’s that for a niche category?
More seriously, Rebecca, what else should we be looking out for among the TIFF selection?
Ford: Already announced are Brooklyn director John Crowley’s next film, We Live in Time, starring Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh, and Ron Howard’s Eden, which are both world premieres that feel very promising. I’m also interested in Unstoppable, directed by Argo editor William Goldenberg, which is a true story sports drama starring the always good Jharrel Jerome and also featuring Jennifer Lopez. (It’s also produced by Ben Affleck!) Finally, I think all eyes are on The Last Showgirl, Gia Coppola’s latest movie, starring Pamela Anderson as a dancer whose long-running Las Vegas show is canceled. It’s a sales title, so it may not be out this awards season, but I think everyone is curious whether Anderson could get one of those amazing awards season narratives if she’s great in the film.
What I’ve also noticed is that we might be in for a season of weird musicals. Of course, we’ve got the Joker sequel and Emilia Perez (which, after a strong Cannes debut, will be landing at the fall fests too), but we both spotted two films on the TIFF lineup that weren’t exactly on our radar before and now might be. The first is Better Man, a musical biopic about Robbie Williams, which is playing at TIFF and stars Williams as himself, with Jonno Davies playing the younger version of him. Not much else is known about the film yet—but it’s directed by Michael Gracey, who did The Greatest Showman, so we might be in for a big, showy musical there. The End, which is also playing at TIFF, is an end-of-the-world musical starring Tilda Swinton and George MacKay. It’s directed by Joshua Oppenheimer (The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence), so I’m not sure what to think about its being a musical—but the wording used on the TIFF announcement makes it seem like it’ll be at Telluride as well. I guess that’s a good way to turn the page to Telluride, which has not, of course, announced its lineup. (As always, it’ll be announced the day before the festival starts.) But I think we have a good sense of some of the films heading there.
