From Brick and Mirror to the Coen Brothers; Venice on the Path to Conquest

The names of the films accepted in the 75th Venice International Film Festival were announced on Wednesday, July 25; the oldest film festival in the world, which will open in about a month on the Lido Island of Venice. The weak selections of the Cannes festival this year have paved the way for the Venice festival to have one of its best editions by inviting a significant number of renowned filmmakers. It is said that some of these filmmakers did not submit their films to Cannes and have been waiting for the Venice festival due to its remarkable quality in the past two or three years - especially last year, which showcased some of the best films of the year. This year in the competition section of the Venice festival, acclaimed filmmakers such as the Coen Brothers, Mike Leigh, Jacques Audiard, Olivier Assayas, Alfonso Cuarón, and Yorgos Lanthimos will compete against each other, which, according to a Guardian writer, is the best selection list of this festival to date. Since filmmakers like Audiard and Assayas often participated in Cannes, whispers of Cannes lagging behind Venice have been growing. According to this announcement, only one feature film from Iranian cinema has been accepted in the Horizons competition section: 'As I Was Dying' by young filmmaker Mostafa Sayyari, who presents his first feature after making several short films. 'As I Was Dying' tells the story of an elderly father who spends his last years living with his son Majid. He has willed to be buried in a village near his birthplace. Majid sets out on the road to bury his father's body there. His two half-siblings, who have learned about this, follow him, and complex events unfold. Ramin Bahrani with his new film 'Blood Relative' and Amir Naderi with a film titled 'Lantern of Imagination' participate in a new side section called 'Beyond Borders' (Sconfini), which is dedicated to experimental and artistic films according to the festival's announcement. In the Venice Classics section, the acclaimed film 'Brick and Mirror' by Ebrahim Golestan will be screened. This film was previously shown at the Rotterdam festival a few years ago, and now its restored version will be screened alongside films by Luchino Visconti (Death in Venice), The Killers (both versions by Robert Siodmak and Don Siegel), Last Year at Marienbad (Alain Resnais), and Street of Shame (Kenji Mizoguchi). A newly completed version of 'The Other Side of the Wind,' which the genius filmmaker Orson Welles left unfinished in the 1970s starring John Huston and Peter Bogdanovich, will be screened at the Venice festival. Welles' film - which tells the story of a director who goes to Hollywood to make his last film; in a way, Welles' own story - also reached Iran, and Mehdi Boushehri, the husband of Ashraf Pahlavi, was one of the investors of this film. Ultimately, disagreements with investors and filming problems led Welles to edit only forty minutes of this film. Damien Chazelle, the creator of the acclaimed film 'La La Land' - which opened the Venice festival two years ago - will also open this festival this year. This film, titled 'First Man,' focuses on the life of Neil Armstrong. Mike Leigh, who returned home with the Golden Lion of Venice in 2004, has returned to Venice with his new film 'Peterloo,' which tells the story of the 1810 massacre, while his previous film, 'Turner,' was screened at the Cannes festival in 2014. Alfonso Cuarón, the Mexican filmmaker, who opened the Venice festival in 2013 with his last film 'Gravity,' has returned to his native language and will have a black-and-white film titled 'Roma' in the competition section. László Nemes, the Hungarian filmmaker who shook Cannes with his first film 'Son of Saul' and won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film, is participating in the Venice festival with his second film titled 'Sunset,' which is set in Budapest before the outbreak of World War I. Documentaries by Emir Kusturica, Frederick Wiseman, Amos Gitai, and Sergei Loznitsa are among this year's documentary section works. Fatemeh Motamed-Arya will be one of the judges in this year's Horizons section. The Venice International Film Festival will be held from August 29 to September 8.