{"id":954052,"date":"2026-07-23T13:25:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T13:25:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/954052\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T13:25:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T13:25:16","slug":"venice-film-festival-2026-elon-musk-documentary-wild-horse-nine-among-world-premieres","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/954052\/","title":{"rendered":"Venice Film Festival 2026: Elon Musk documentary, ‘Wild Horse Nine’ among world premieres"},"content":{"rendered":"

A four-hour documentary about Elon Musk<\/a>, Martin McDonagh\u2019s dark CIA comedy \u201cWild Horse Nine\u201d and films featuring Robert Pattinson, Pen\u00e9lope Cruz and Javier Bardem are among the movies premiering at the Venice Film Festival<\/a> in September. <\/p>\n

Alberto Barbera, the festival\u2019s artistic director, unveiled the lineup Thursday for the 83rd edition of the festival, the first of many in a busy fall film season that culminates in the Hollywood awards showdown. Like the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, the selection is lighter on Hollywood studio films than in years past. <\/p>\n

\u201cWild Horse Nine,\u201d starring John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell as CIA agents in Chile before the 1973 coup, is among the higher-profile titles playing in competition. It will play alongside \u201cPrimetime,\u201d in which Pattinson stars as \u201cTo Catch a Predator\u201d host Chris Hansen. The broader slate has anticipated documentaries like Alex Gibney\u2019s \u201cMusk,\u201d a sweeping portrait of the billionaire, and Julia Loktev\u2019s \u201cMy Undesirable Friends: Part II \u2014 Exile,\u201d which follows Russian independent journalists after they leave the country. Similar to the first part, it runs 355 minutes. <\/p>\n

The festival\u2019s main competition includes a diverse array of international and American films, like Werner Herzog\u2019s \u201cBucking Fastard,\u201d in which sisters Rooney and Kate Mara play identical twins. <\/p>\n

Also on the program are Florian Zeller\u2019s thriller \u201cBunker,\u201d with Bardem and Cruz playing a married couple, Lee Chang-dong\u2019s \u201cPossible Love,\u201d St\u00e9phane Briz\u00e9\u2019s \u201cA Good Little Soldier\u201d and Hirokazu Kore-eda\u2019s \u201cLook Back,\u201d a coming of age story about two girls who dream of being manga artists. Casey Affleck will be in competition for the first time with \u201cCompany,\u201d starring Nick Nolte and Ben Mendelsohn. Nanni Moretti also returns for the first time since 1989.<\/p>\n

Notable documentary premieres out of competition include \u201cOasis: Don\u2019t Look Back in Anger,\u201d Barbara Kopple\u2019s \u201cUnion Town,\u201d Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin\u2019s \u201cEverest: The Other Side,\u201d Luca Guadagnino\u2019s seven-hour Bernardo Bertolucci film \u201cJoie de Vivre,\u201d Wim Wenders\u2019 look at architect Peter Zumthor, Russell Crowe\u2019s autobiographical musical concert movie, \u201cWhat Love Builds,\u201d and Laura Poitras\u2019s short about U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Minneapolis, \u201cThey\u2019re Here.\u201d <\/p>\n

Barbera said he expects Noel and Liam Gallagher to attend on behalf of the film, which was directed by Steven Knight and will be in theaters soon after, on Sept. 11.<\/p>\n

The festival is set to open on Sept. 2 with Danny Boyle\u2019s \u201cInk,\u201d<\/a> an adaptation of James Graham\u2019s stage play which dramatizes the rise of media tycoon Rupert Murdoch. \u201cInk\u201d is also playing in the main competition and in the running for awards such as the Golden Lion, a prize that is decided upon by a jury led this year by filmmaker and actor Maggie Gyllenhaal<\/a>. Other jurors include filmmakers like Kaouther Ben Hania, Johnnie To and Shahrbanoo Sadat and composer Daniel Blumberg.<\/p>\n

Gyllenhaal has a film playing as well: A Marilyn Monroe-inspired short, \u201cFlesh Impact,\u201d in which Dakota Johnson and Ellen Burstyn \u201cgive body and voice to the myth of Marilyn,\u201d Barbera said. The 93-year-old Burstyn will also get a lifetime achievement award from the festival.<\/p>\n

Venice has in the last 15 years proved a desirable launching pad for Oscar hopefuls, even if not everything breaks through. Last year\u2019s edition had plenty of star power in the lineup, with Julia Roberts, George Clooney and Dwayne Johnson movies among the splashy premieres. But the glow of the festival moment was short-lived: The films, \u201cAfter the Hunt,\u201d \u201cJay Kelly\u201d and \u201cThe Smashing Machine,\u201d were neither triumphant with audiences in theaters (\u201cJay Kelly\u201d was a Netflix release) nor with awards voters. <\/p>\n

Still, there\u2019s usually a best picture nominee in the slate: Last year there were two in \u201cFrankenstein\u201d and \u201cBugonia.\u201d<\/p>\n

This year won\u2019t be bereft of a Clooney moment either: The Venice regular is getting a lifetime achievement award<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A four-hour documentary about Elon Musk, Martin McDonagh\u2019s dark CIA comedy \u201cWild Horse Nine\u201d and films featuring Robert…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":954053,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[100575,383918,383911,383920,383917,48669,185,383909,1144,7703,383913,208,434,60990,383910,285127,171,22016,354599,57,13615,360340,122942,121635,122260,196263,6667,109561,119879,383912,383915,31861,47633,32281,383908,49626,53,383919,383914,180021,102222,653,26342,17678,383916,69251,67,132,68,30989,104488,172989,107],"class_list":["post-954052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-alberto-barbera","tag-alex-gibney","tag-barbara-kopple","tag-ben-mendelsohn","tag-bernardo-bertolucci","tag-casey-affleck","tag-celebrities","tag-chris-hansen","tag-comedy","tag-dakota-johnson","tag-daniel-blumberg","tag-danny-boyle","tag-documentaries","tag-dwayne-johnson","tag-elizabeth-chai-vasarhelyi","tag-ellen-burstyn","tag-entertainment","tag-fairs-and-festivals","tag-florian-zeller","tag-general-news","tag-george-clooney","tag-hirokazu-kore-eda","tag-javier-bardem","tag-jimmy-chin","tag-john-malkovich","tag-julia-loktev","tag-julia-roberts","tag-kaouther-ben-hania","tag-kate-mara","tag-laura-poitras","tag-lee-chang-dong","tag-liam-gallagher","tag-luca-guadagnino","tag-maggie-gyllenhaal","tag-martin-mcdonagh","tag-movie-premieres","tag-movies","tag-nanni-moretti","tag-nick-nolte","tag-peter-zumthor","tag-robert-pattinson","tag-rupert-murdoch","tag-russell-crowe","tag-sam-rockwell","tag-stephane-brize","tag-steven-knight","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-venice-film-festival","tag-werner-herzog","tag-wim-wenders","tag-world-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954052","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=954052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/954053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=954052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=954052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=954052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}