Renowned Directors Gathering in Venice International Film Festival, 21 Films Competing for Golden Lion Award

“First person”

The 75th Venice International Film Festival was held on August 29^th in the water city of Venice with a star-studded lineup. Guillermo del Toro, the director who won Golden Lion Award for his work The Shape of Water last year, serves as the chairman of the Jury while British actress Naomi Watts, Austria actor Christoph Waltz, Chinese female director Sylvia Chang are among the 8 members of the Jury.

The 21 films selected into the “In competition” unit of the festival will compete for the Golden Lion Award , including new works of world-famous directors, such as Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma, Coen brothers’ The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Mike Leigh’s Peterloo, as well as backbone works like Damien Chazelle’s First Man, Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Favourite, Shinya Tsukamoto’s Killing and so on. Without being shortlisted in “In competition”unit, Chinese films are going to show up in other units. Zhang Yimou’s Shadow and Cai Mingliang’s Your Face were invited to the non-competition screening unit while Wan Ma Cai Dan’s Jinpa is included in the Orizzonti section, which saves a hope for Chinese movies. The Beijing News made an exclusive list of the finalists of the Venice Film Festival and interpreted the films for the audience in advance.

New Works of Renowned Directors

Peterloo – Adapted from Historical Events

Director: Mike Leigh

Starring: Rory Kinnear, Maxine Peake

Screenwriter: Mike Leigh

Type: Drama / History

The director Mike Leigh has been nominated for the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival many times. In 2004, he won the Golden Lion Award for Vera Drake. Peterloo is another historical drama released by the director following Mr. Turner, centering on the historical event of the British Tory Party’s suppression of demonstrations in 1819, which is called “Peterloo Massacre”. The film Peterloo is a project designed to celebrate the spirit of British people’s democratic reforms to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the British “Peterloo Massacre”.

Mike Leigh has begun to consider adapting this historical events since 2016. The film is invested and produced by Amazon Studios, UK Film4 channel and the British Film Institute (BFI), with a budget between $20 million and $30 million. It is Mike Leigh’s  film with the highest cost up to now.

The film will be released in North America on November 9th.

Roma – Telling the Epic in Black and White

Director: Alfonso Karon

Screenwriter: Alfonso Karon

Type: plot

The director adopted a new form to make this six-episode TV series onto the big screen. They edited the series into a multi-section movie following six different story lines, each of which independently made a chapter. The film is about 132 minutes long, telling the story of the American borders. The six stories are: a story of a cowboy singer; a wanderer on the plateau intending to rob the bank; a story between a TV show host and an actor; a professor at risk for discovering a gold mine; a woman getting along with two foremen in her industry; five strangers taking a carriage to a mysterious location.

The two directors said: “We are always in favor of multi-segment movies, especially those made by Italian directors in the 1960s, who shot short films of the same subject and joined them together. We tried the same, which every short film director is willing to do, and we are fortunate enough to be able to complete such a movie.” As the publisher, Netflix broke the routines, releasing the film in the US cinemas after screening it on its own platform, preparing it for the award season and Oscar of the following year.

Backbone Films

First Man – La La Land

Director：Damien Chazelle

Stars：Ryan Gosling，Claire Foy

Writers: Nicole Perlman、Josh Singer

Type: Biography

The original copyright holder of the film First Man was Warner, and the director nominee was Crete Eastwood. But later the project was taken over by Universal Picture, confirming Damien Chazelle as the director, who just won a number of Oscar nominations for his maiden work Whiplash. However, due to various reasons, the film has not progressed in production. In 2017, the director Damien Chazelle won Academy Award for Best Directing with his second work La La Land, and became the youngest Best Director in Oscar history. At this time, the “first person” who had been on hold for a long time was finally put on the production schedule. At the same time, the film First Man that had been held up for a long time finally continued its scheduled project.

The film is not only short-listed for the “In competition” unit, but will serve as the opening film of the festival to on August 29th. The film is adapted from James Hansen’s biography First Man: Neil Armstrong’s Life, which tells the story of the first astronaut to land on the moon in human history. The story selected the most brilliant chapters in Armstrong’s life, focusing on his experiences of joining NASA in 1961 and landing on the moon in 1969. It’s not just Armstrong’s personal biography, but also a legendary movie about landing on the moon. Ryan Gosling, the leading actor of La La Land, starred the film again, which is his second cooperation with the director Damien Chazere.

The film will be officially released in North America on October 12 this year.

Zan – a Ronin and a Homeless Girl

Director: Shinya Tsukamoto

Stars: Sosuke Ikematsu,Yu Aoi

Writer: Shinya Tsukamoto

Genre: Action

The Japanese director Shinya Tsukamoto also frequents Venice Film Festival. In 2011, KOTOKO won the Orizzonti-section award while his latest work Zan was shortlisted for the “In-Competition” unit of the Venice Film Festival. The film is set in the countryside in the suburbs of Edo Castle in the late Edo period, centering on a ronin who sought to stir up the wave of the times and the destinies of people closely related to him. Sosuke Ikematsu plays the ronin who struggled to survive in a turbulent society in transition. Yu Aoi plays the heroine, a homeless woman pleasant who lives in the suburbs of old Tokyo and is the confidant of the hero.

The film will be screened in Japan on November 24th this year.

The Favourite – British Harem fight

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos

Stars: Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz

Writers: Deborah Davis, Tony McNamara

Genres: Biography, History

The director Yorgos Lanthimos has directed The Lobster, The Killing of a Sacred Deer and so on, and won the Best Screenplay of the Venice Film Festival for Alps. Set in England in the early 18th century, The Favourite tells the story of fierce struggles between women competing for the Queen’s favor and gaining court power. It is a story about court conspiracy, passion, jealousy and betrayal. The costumes are elegant and the background of the times is grand.

The film has a star-studded cast, including Oscar-winning actress Emma Stone, Oscar Best Supporting Actress Rachel Weisz, and Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress Olivia Coleman. Actors include Nicholas Hoult, who plays the Beast in the X-Men series, and Joe Alwyn, the actor of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk.

The film will be screened in North America on November 23.

Chinese Films in Exhibition

Your face – Close–ups of the Civilians

Director: Cai Mingliang

Stars: Li Kangsheng, Chen Xiangqi

Writer: Cai Mingliang

Genres: Drama, Documentary

Cai Mingliang’s Your face was also selected for the non-competition screening unit of the Venice Film Festival. Cai Mingliang won the Golden Lion Award for Vive L’Amour in 1994 and the Jury Prize for Stray Dogs in 2013.

Your face focuses on a dozen old amateur actors and shoots a movie with only close-ups. He likes to observe old men’s face, thinking that each of them looks great. “They watched us grow up. Why can’t we look at them?” So Cai spent two months looking for amateur actors in the streets of Taiwan. Old people don’t know him, but they all agree to play in his film while their children worry that the elderly are being defrauded until they see the director. Cai Mingliang said: “This work cannot be categorized. It is neither a documentary nor a drama. Each face in my lens is a composition and landscape.” In addition to these amateur actors, there are also Cai’s old partners – Li Kangsheng and Chen Xiangqi.

In addition to the exploration of the film’s form, another highlight of the film is the soundtrack created by Japanese music master Ryuichi Sakamoto, of whom Cai has always been a fan. At the Venice Film Festival last year, the two met unexpectedly, which led to this cooperation.

Shadow – The attempt is elegant and flexible

Director: Zhang Yimou

Stars: Deng Chao, Sun Li, Zheng Kai

Writers: Li Wei, Zhang Yimou

Genres: Action, Drama

Zhang Yimou’s Shadow was selected for the non-competition screening unit of the Venice Film Festival. Before the red carpet ceremony of the festival, director Zhang Yimou will be the first Chinese director to receive the “Glorious Film Producer Award” from the film festival. Zhang Yimou has a profound relationship with the Venice Film Festival. In 1991, his film Raise the red lantern was nominated for the Golden Lion Award and won the Jury Award. In 1992 and 1999, he won the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival twice with The Story of Qiu-Ju and Not One Less.

Shadow is a reinterpretation of the story of Jingzhou in the time of the Three Kingdoms by the director Zhang Yimou, centering on a small person who was secretly imprisoned from the age of eight. Unwilling to be treated as a substitute, he  strived hard to seek freedom. Different from the Zhang’s previous works with flamboyant images, the film adopts a black-white-gray texture on the screen, incorporated with Chinese elements, which creates a flavor of Chinese painting . In particular, the patterns of traditional Chinese ink paintings make costumes fresh and elegant, which is a bold attempt unprecedented in Chinese movie history.

The film is scheduled to be released nationwide on September 30th, 2018.

Jinpa – Supervised and Produced by Karwai Won, Starring Tibetans

Director: Pema Tseden

Stars: Jinpa, Genden Phuntsok, Sonam Wangmo

Writers: Pema Tseden

Genre: Drama

The Tibetan director Pema Tseden’s Jinpa was shortlisted for the “Horizon” competition unit of this year’s film festival. This is Pema Tseden’s second film to be selected for the “Horizon” competition unit at the Venice Film Festival after Tharlo in 2015. The “Horizon” unit of the Venice Film Festival aims to encourage film experiments and innovations and capture the development trends of international films. It is the experimental and innovative elements that made his films selected twice for the unit. The film is also the only Chinese film to be included in the “In-Competition” Unit this year.

The film is adapted from the short story “The Killer” by Tsering Robb and the short story “Zhuang si le yi zhi yang” by Pema Tseden. It features a revenge story, centers on the subjects of redemption and letting down, flavored with oriental and mysterious aroma. The actors are all Tibetans, and shots are set in Tibet. Judging from the posters currently published, the colorful and black-and-white images are intertwined, rough yet with oil-painting textures, which will refresh audiences’ understandings of Tibetan culture and living states. In addition, the film is the first cooperation between Pema Tseden and Zedong movies. As the producer of the film, Karwai Wong adores Pema Tseden’s film very much, actively participating in the creation of the film, from script writing to shooting

Source: Sina