‘A Place to Heal’ Review: Cédric Kahn’s Uneven Teen Psych Ward Drama
Writer-director Cédric Kahn is perhaps best known outside France for helming tense, extremely bleak thrillers — Red Lights, Roberto Succo and L’Ennui — bathed in both film noir and existential angst. But he’s also tried his hand at several other genres, including a supernatural kids flick (The Plane), a gritty tale of rehab and religion […]
Paul Schrader on Bringing The Basics of Philosophy to Venice
Paul Schrader has spent half a century writing men who sit alone in rooms, filling notebooks with confessions no one asked for. On Friday in Venice, the 79-year-old writer-director offered a simple explanation for why he has never been able to put the subject down: he was programmed early, and the program still runs. “I […]
‘Balcanica’ Film Trailer Venice: Music Is Outlawed in Afghanistan
Nicola Sorcinelli is exploring timely, complex and emotional issues in his feature directorial debut, Balcanica, for which THR can exclusively premiere a first teaser trailer ahead of its world premiere in the Venice Days, or Giornate degli Autori, competition, the independent sidebar of the Venice Film Festival, later on Friday. “A human story of choice […]
‘My Undesirable Friends: Part II — Exile’ Review: An Essential Doc
If part one of director Julia Loktev’s sprawling and essential 12-hour chronicle of journalism under fire concluded, like any good piece of serial storytelling, with a veritable cliffhanger, part two covers the long and painful aftermath following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. By that point, we’ve come to know the handful of […]
‘The Horsemen of the Apocalypse’ Film Director Venice Gap Interview
In 1975, Norwegian film director and author Arnljot Berg (Bobby’s War, Closed Ward) was arrested in Paris and charged with the murder of his wife, Evelyne. Back then, his daughter, filmmaker Lene Berg (False Belief, Kopfkino), was nine years old. In 1982, the father died by suicide. Forty years later, the dramatic childhood experience is the […]
‘Too Much Sugar’ Review: Robert Greene’s Hybrid Portrait of Rural Life
Director and editor Robert Greene continues to intriguingly blur the lines between fact, fiction and filmmaking in his new hybrid feature, Too Much Sugar, which premiered in Venice’s Orizzonti sidebar. Like his precedent efforts, Bisbee ’17 and Procession, Greene’s latest is an exercise in collaborative directing that employs real people to both be themselves and […]
Meryl Streep, Colman Domingo, Bill Hader Join ‘Lincoln in the Bardo’
Meryl Streep, Colman Domingo, Bill Hader and Tom Waits have joined the A-list cast for the animated and live-action feature Lincoln in the Bardo. They board the Starburns Industries hybrid film that already has Tom Hanks on board to star as U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in the live-action portion of the film, while Willem Dafoe, […]
Wildman: This Screenplay Is John Wick’ Meets Bigfoot
For a great many years, spec scripts of a certain action nature were described as “Die Hard but on a….” In more recent years, spec scripts of a certain action nature have found themselves described as “John Wick but with…” Well, welcome to “John Wick but with a Bigfoot.” Badlands, the genre label run by […]
‘Wild Horse Nine’ Gets Venice’s First Rapturous Reception of 2026
Martin McDonagh’s latest darkly literate, offbeat comedy drama Wild Horse Nine landed on the Venetian Lido by way of Easter Island Thursday evening, giving the world’s oldest film festival its first raucous standing ovation of 2026. Set shortly before the 1973 military coup in Chile, the darkly comic and soulful buddy movie features a cast […]
Paul Schrader is a Legend of the Venice Film Festival
Paul Schrader is back in the room. The screenwriter of Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, and the director of American Gigolo, First Reformed and The Card Counter, turned 80 in July. He’s never been busier. The Basics of Philosophy, Schrader’s latest film as writer-director, premieres out of competition at the Venice Film Festival. He says he has “three more films in the […]