{"id":179319,"date":"2025-08-27T09:06:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T09:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/179319\/"},"modified":"2025-08-27T09:06:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T09:06:10","slug":"julia-roberts-but-not-gal-gadot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/179319\/","title":{"rendered":"Julia Roberts but Not Gal Gadot"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe red carpet has been rolled out in front of the Lido\u2019s sparkling white, freshly renovated Palazzo del Cinema, where boatloads of stars will soon be prancing for paparazzi and screaming fans when the Venice Film Festival<\/a> kicks off Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis year\u2019s 82nd edition is set to be the most high-wattage celebration of cinema on the Lido in recent memory, with a cornucopia of anticipated movies led by top talent launching Aug. 27 to Sept. 6.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tJulia Roberts<\/a>, at Venice for the first time, Andrew Garfield, and Ayo Edebiri (\u201cThe Bear\u201d) are all confirmed to be attending for Luca Guadagnino\u2019s #MeToo-themed drama\u00a0\u201cAfter the Hunt,\u201d as are George Clooney and Adam Sandler, both making the trek for Noah Baumbach\u2019s \u201cJay Kelly\u201d in which Clooney plays a movie star undergoing an identity crisis.<\/p>\n

\n\tEmma Stone is confirmed to be Lido-bound for \u201cBugonia,\u201d her latest collaboration with Yorgos Lanthimos.<\/p>\n

\n\tDwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt will be making the trek for Benny Safdie\u2019s \u201cThe Smashing Machine,\u201d featuring Johnson as two-time UFC heavyweight champ Mark Kerr and Blunt as his wife Dawn. Jacob Elordi and Oscar Isaac are also coming for Guillermo del Toro\u2019s new take on \u201cFrankenstein.\u201d Isaac is doing double duty, since he also toplines Julian Schnabel\u2019s time-traveling thriller \u201cIn The Hand of Dante.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNetflix \u2014 as has been the case in the past \u2014 will have a robust Venice presence with a trio of high-profile movies, all in competition.\u00a0The streaming giant\u2019s Lido launches comprise \u201cJay Kelly,\u201d \u201cFrankenstein\u201d and Kathryn Bigelow\u2019s politically charged \u201cA House of Dynamite,\u201d set during a fictional national security crisis at the White House.<\/p>\n

\n\tVenice artistic director Alberto Barbera, in a wide-ranging interview with Variety<\/a>, said nearly all key cast members of selected films are expected. One notable exception being Israel\u2019s Gal Gadot, who stars in \u201cThe Hand of Dante.\u201d\u00a0Al Pacino, who has a smaller role in the film, will also miss the premiere. Pacino also stars in Gus Van Sant\u2019s film \u201cDead Man\u2019s Wire\u201d which plays out of competition on the Lido.<\/p>\n

\n\tGadot has been at the center of controversy lately following the box office failure of Disney\u2019s \u201cSnow White\u201d that coincided with pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel protests during its promotion, prompting debate about her support for Israel.\u00a0The festival did not comment on why Gadot is giving Venice a miss.<\/p>\n

\n\tAmid this year\u2019s heightened glitz, politics will also be playing prominently on the Lido.<\/p>\n

\n\tBarbera said he expects pro-Palestinian demonstrations, one of which is planned by local activists on Aug. 30. Another moment of solidarity with Gaza at the fest will likely be in tandem with the Sept. 3 screening of Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania\u2019s hot-button political drama \u201cThe Voice of Hind Rajab,\u201d about the killing of a\u00a05-year-old Palestinian girl who was left stranded in a car that had been attacked by Israeli forces in Gaza and was later found dead.<\/p>\n

\n\tOlivier Assayas\u2019 timely political thriller \u201cThe Wizard of the Kremlin,\u201d which depicts the rise of Vladimir Putin, played by Jude Law with heavy prosthetics, is bound to stoke, or at least reinforce, anti-Russian sentiment. So is the doc \u201cNotes of a True Criminal\u201d by Oscar-nominated producer and director Alexander Rodnyansky, about the lead-up to him being sentenced in absentia last year by a Moscow court\u00a0to 8.5 years in prison for his anti-war statements. The Kyiv-born Rodnyansky, who spent nearly three decades living and working in Russia, has been an outspoken critic of the war in Ukraine since Russia\u2019s invasion in February 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile politics could heat things up, the actual weather in Venice is expected to be cooler this time than last year, when temperatures nearing 90 degrees Fahrenheit throughout the fest turned the Lido into a sauna.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe forecast on the Lido for the next 11 days is for highs in the mid 70s, making for a more sweat-free clime, though there is a chance of occasional rain.<\/p>\n

\n\tLet the Venice extravaganza begin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The red carpet has been rolled out in front of the Lido\u2019s sparkling white, freshly renovated Palazzo del…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":179320,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[171,6667,67,132,68,30989],"class_list":{"0":"post-179319","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-julia-roberts","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us","13":"tag-venice-film-festival"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115099938742657381","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}