VENICE 2025
The 82nd Venice International Film Festival raises its curtain on the Lido today. Emanuela Fanelli, no coincidence, will lead the opening ceremony: ironic, unsettling, and capable of bringing lightness to a ritual usually dominated by formality.
The Competition opens with La Grazia , the new film by Paolo Sorrentino, who returns to Venice with his favorite actor, Toni Servillo, and Anna Ferzetti. A story that focuses on the role of a President of the Republic and the dilemmas that accompany those in power when faced with ethical and political choices. Sorrentino remains true to himself: he continues to narrate our times through figures who oscillate between greatness and fragility, in that subtle balance where reality becomes a parable.
Alongside him, opening the Orizzonti section is Mother by Macedonian director Teona Strugar Mitevska, starring an intense Noomi Rapace. A clear signal: the festival is looking equally at Italian cinema as it is at new European voices.
The opening night isn’t just the opening of the competition. It’s also a celebration: the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement goes to Werner Herzog, a visionary and unclassifiable filmmaker, capable of crossing the Amazon in Fitzcarraldo and exploring the ice of Antarctica. Paying tribute to him with a laudatory speech will be Francis Ford Coppola, a friend and colleague who shares his striving for the impossible. A moment that unites two giants, vastly different yet mirrored: American epic and German vertigo.
Famous faces and international glamour graced the red carpet. Cate Blanchett and Julia Roberts were among this year’s most anticipated stars, but the red carpet wasn’t just a catwalk: a flash mob commemorated the tragedy of the war in Gaza, transforming the inauguration into a political act as well.
The Venice 82 program features twenty-one titles in competition. In addition to Sorrentino, five are Italian: Duse by Pietro Marcello, Elisa by Leonardo Di Costanzo, A Film Made for Bene by Franco Maresco, and Sotto le nuvole by Gianfranco Rosi. Highly anticipated works arrive from the international scene: Yorgos Lanthimos with Bugonia , Guillermo del Toro with his reinterpretation of Frankenstein , Noah Baumbach with Jay Kelly , Olivier Assayas with The Wizard of the Kremlin , Kathryn Bigelow with A House of Dynamite .
Out of competition, some titles with a strong media appeal stand out: Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt , starring Julia Roberts, and * Cédric Jimenez ‘s Chien 51 , chosen as the closing film. Among the documentaries, two gems: Ghost Elephants by Herzog himself and Megadoc , a behind-the-scenes look at Coppola’s new blockbuster, Megalopolis .
The parallel sections complete the mosaic: Venice Classics, with restorations and tributes to past masters; Critics’ Week and Venice Days, a hotbed of independent and experimental cinema.
Venice thus confirms itself not only as a glittering showcase, but as a place where cinema once again has the courage to question reality. This is its most authentic nature: a mirror that reflects, but also a lens that distorts and forces us to look beyond.
Alessandro Sicuro
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Alessandro Sicuro Comunication
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