Category: Venice Film Festival

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Dwayne Johnson emily blunt Venice Film Festival

Dwayne Johnson showed off his dramatic weight-loss transformation in Venice

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Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Emily Blunt were in Venice on Monday to premiere their new film, The Smashing Machine. It was directed by Benny Safdie, and it’s about the real UFC fighter Mark Kerr. Apparently, the Venice audience loved the film, loved The Rock as Kerr and loved Emily Blunt as Kerr’s partner Dawn Staples-Kerr. Venice gave the film and the actors a 15-minute standing ovation.

This is the second time Emily and Dwayne have worked together, and they seem to get along really well. To be fair, Emily seems to be besties with ALL of her costars, but she and Dwayne seemed especially giggly and affectionate with one another. Dwayne has apparently lost something like 60 pounds for this role, and he’s maintained the new physique since the film wrapped. It’s apparently a new thing for him, he wants to be taken more seriously as an actor, and he also had/has some health issues (which he isn’t disclosing with any specificity beyond “gut issues”).

As for Emily…she wore Tamara Ralph Fall 2025 Couture to the big Venice premiere. I’m not really a fan of this design? I always debate myself whether I want to talk about Emily’s cosmetic work too, so all I’ll say is that she doesn’t need all of that and it makes her look much older.

Dwayne Johnson is emotional during the 15-minute standing ovation of ‘THE SMASHING MACHINE’ at Venice Film Festival.

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— Film Updates (@thefilmupdates.bsky.social) September 1, 2025 at 3:59 PM

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

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emma stone Fashion Venice Film Festival

Emma Stone wore two Louis Vuitton looks in Venice to support ‘Bugonia’

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Here are some photos of Emma Stone in Venice, at the photocall and premiere of Bugonia. This is her latest collaboration with Yorgos Lanthimos, who directed Emma in The Favourite and Poor Things (which won Emma her second Best Actress Oscar). Bugonia looks like a trip, and it’s so funny that Emma’s favorite director/collaborator is so offbeat and art-house.

Anyway, for both the photocall and premiere, Emma wore Louis Vuitton. The white dress is the premiere look, the black dress is for the photocall. I actually love the photocall look – it reminds me of the slipdresses which were so popular back in the day. The other LV… eh. I’m not wild about this ambassadorship and I feel like Emma is in a style rut because of LV, but it is what it is. The exaggerated peplum wouldn’t have been my call, but again, not my circus, not my clowns. At least her hair looks super-cute.

Just before the premiere, Focus released the trailer for Bugonia, and this is our first sighting of Bald Emma Stone. LOL… just from the trailer, I think she’s going to get another Oscar nom.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

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Daniel Craig Fashion Rachel Weisz Venice Film Festival

Daniel Craig brought his Versace-clad wife to the Venice ‘Queer’ premiere

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Daniel Craig brought his wife Rachel Weisz to the Venice Film Festival. Rachel is supporting him as he promotes Luca Guadagnino’s latest film, Queer. Guadagnino directed arguably one of the best “queer films” of the past two decades in Call Me By Your Name. Apparently, no one should go into Queer thinking that it’s in the same vein as CMBYN, at all. It’s based on William S. Burrough’s book of the same name, which makes it a period film, set in the 1950s Mexico City, and Craig plays an American expatriate who is stuck there AND he’s an addict AND he’s gay. You guys… wasn’t this sort of the basis for that Todd Haynes film Joaquin Phoenix pulled out of? Weird. The Haynes film was also supposed to be a detective story too, I guess that was the difference. They’re also going on and on about the graphic nature of the sex scenes, and the Haynes film was supposed to be quite graphic too. Hm,

Anyway, Rachel looked nice at the premiere. She wore Atelier Versace, paired with Boucheron jewelry. Daniel looks nice too – I actually like his longer, shaggy hair. I wish he would take his sunglasses off for red carpets, but I think he still gets pretty nervous, so he uses sunglasses and his hot wife as de facto security blankets.

A new Queer clip just dropped and I… cringed. Am I supposed to cringe? While the critical reception seems mixed, there’s also a vibe that Daniel will probably be an awards contender. Hm. I already know what his competition will say: why is a straight man playing this character?

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

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Angelina Jolie Fashion Venice Film Festival

Angelina Jolie wore Tamara Ralph & wept during the 8-minute ovation in Venice

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Hands on your knees, Angelina Jolie! Angelina stole the show and perhaps the hearts of all Italians last night in Venice. Pablo Larrain’s Maria got its splashy Venice Film Festival premiere on the second night, and the reception was rapturous. Every critic who watched the screening has raved about the film and Angelina’s performance. If the critics have their way, she will be guaranteed an Oscar nomination and she’s likely the front-runner to win. They’re calling it a career-best performance from Jolie. They’re saying she’s the only one who could have played Maria Callas. They’re saying Angelina is one of the few movie stars left in the world.

Angelina’s look at the premiere was dramatic… for beige. Truly, the most dramatic beige I’ve ever seen. Angelina’s gown is a custom look from Tamara Ralph, one half of Ralph & Russo. Jolie used to wear a lot of Ralph & Russo back in the day, and I kind of love that she went back to Tamara Ralph. She paired the gown with a faux fur stole and Cartier jewelry. Earlier in the day, she wore a Cartier brooch, a vintage piece which once belonged to Maria Callas. Perhaps her brooch at the premiere also had a Callas connection. I would assume that Angelina’s blood-red lipstick is courtesy of Tom Ford Beauty, since she recently became the face of the beauty company.

After the premiere, Angelina and Pablo Larrain received an eight-minute standing ovation. Angelina cried, she was so moved by the reception. The critics have been moved as well – I’ve seen a couple of critics admit to weeping at parts of the movie. Basically, Angelina has fully achieved goddess status this year. Italians camped out overnight for a glimpse of her. One man sang in Italian to her at the photocall. Journalists were asking for her autograph. One of her fans has brittle-bone disease and he asked to be transported by gurney to the premiere so he could possibly meet Jolie. She dutifully stopped, knelt down and spoke to him. She really is Saint Angelina now.

Angelina Jolie weeps through an 8-minute #Venezia81 standing ovation for ‘Maria,’ which will be a major Oscars contender. pic.twitter.com/PMiu4RWJ09

— Ramin Setoodeh (@RaminSetoodeh) August 29, 2024

Angelina Jolie tears up during the 8-minute standing ovation for #Maria. https://t.co/Wg4J4cVGp5 pic.twitter.com/mwctbzu4Me

— Variety (@Variety) August 29, 2024

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

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Angelina Jolie Fashion Venice Film Festival

Angelina Jolie looks radiant in Saint Laurent at the Venice photocall for ‘Maria’

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Here are some new photos of Angelina Jolie today at the Venice Film Festival. This is from the photocall and daytime promotion for Pablo Larrain’s Maria, which stars Angelina as Maria Callas. The world premiere is this evening and I hope Angelina brings the drama! I don’t have an ID on this dress, but she wore Tom Ford to an event last night. Meaning, she’s not just wearing pieces from Atelier Jolie for this promotion, and mama’s got a new Tom Ford Beauty contract, so who knows. This doesn’t look like Tom Ford to me, but I wonder if she’ll wear that label at the premiere. Update: this dress is Saint Laurent.

Meanwhile, there was some concern that Angelina might run into Brad Pitt, who is also scheduled to appear in Venice to promote Wolfs with George Clooney. Venice organizers have arranged it so that the two exes – who are currently suing each other – will not come into contact:

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie will avoid any awkward run-in this week while promoting their movies at the Venice International Film Festival — as programmers have taken extra precaution to keep the embattled exes apart. In a recent interview with Vanity Fair, Venice artistic director Alberto Barbera said the fest took special care to keep the famous exes’ films from overlapping on its schedule.

“Angelina will be on the first day, on Thursday [Aug. 29], and she will leave right after with [‘Maria’ director] Pablo Larraín” for the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado, Barbera said. “So Brad will arrive only on Saturday, to Venice. There is no way that they can cross each other at the Lido,” the famed island on which the fest takes place.

A source tells us the Hollywood stars did not request that the fest space out their films.

“Neither asked for that, they were wise enough to realize,” said our source.

[From Page Six]

Good. I wouldn’t blame Angelina if she did ask for a special arrangement to be made, but that probably didn’t happen. Once the festival realized that Angelina would show up (her first time in years), they did all they could to make sure that she’s being treated appropriately.

Meanwhile, at the beginning of the week, Maria did not have an American distributor and there were some concerns that no one wanted to invest in a smaller-budget Oscar-bait drama. Well, Netflix has now picked up Maria! I hope they do a theatrical release, but I’ll be fine if this goes straight to streaming too. I feel like Netflix is perfectly willing to put some money behind Angelina’s Oscar campaign. Speaking of, we don’t have a trailer for Maria yet but they did release a clip. I’m already obsessed.

#angelinajolie seen at #venicefilmfestival2024 wearing #tomford silk candy kaftan pic.twitter.com/7LICft1n8c

— R.B.N (@rbnjo) August 28, 2024

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

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Catherine O'Hara Fashion Jenna Ortega Justin Theroux Monica Bellucci Tim Burton Venice Film Festival Winona Ryder

Jenna Ortega & Winona Ryder went full goth-girl at the Venice ‘Beetlejuice’ premiere

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You might think, “why did a commercial sequel to Beetlejuice get a world premiere at the Venice Film Festival?” At least that’s what I thought at first. But seeing the photos from Venice, I get it. This was a MOMENT. The cast really delivered too. Venice believed in Tim Burton so much that Beetlejuice Beetlejuice was the opening night premiere. I’m splitting up the photos. This post is just for the cast of B2, as I’m calling it now so I won’t have to type it out every time.

Winona Ryder wore Chanel and she walked the carpet with her longtime partner Scott Mackinlay Hahn. He’s a smokeshow in a quiet way! They look lovely together. Winona is absolutely theme dressing for B2, but I feel pretty confident that she would have worn Chanel or something like this regardless. She’s supposed to look like Lydia Deetz! And that makes my goth-girl heart sing.

Jenna Ortega – who plays Lydia’s daughter in B2 – wore Dior. This is supposed to be a sartorial callback to the “wedding dress” worn by Lydia in B1. It’s cool! I like the look more knowing the backstory, and I like that Jenna did a vampy makeup look.

Other fashion notes: Catherine O’Hara wore a spectacular, on-theme Oscar de la Renta. And Monica Belluci wore Vivienne Westwood – Monica is in the film, and she’s also dating the director, Tim Burton. They held hands on the carpet.

Also coupled up on the carpet: Justin Theroux and his girlfriend Nicole Brydon Bloom. I think this is their red-carpet couple debut, actually (scratch that – they went to the Vanity Fair Oscar party this year). She’s pretty… but she looks very young. Let me look it up… oh, she’s only 30 years old. He’s 53. Yeah… that’s what I would expect from him.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

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Ava Duvernay Venice Film Festival

Ava DuVernay: Black filmmakers are told internat’l audiences don’t care about our stories

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The Oscars and the Golden Globes get a lot of flack for being toxic and prejudiced and that reputation is well earned. This is especially the case for Black women filmmakers and showrunners. As a recent example, The Woman King, directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood, was shut out from the Oscars this year despite being a critical and commercial hit. And in 2021, the HFPA rejected Shonda Rhimes’ requests for press conferences about Bridgerton until it became a surprise hit. In 2019, Ava DuVernay sat through a press conference for When They See Us where only 20 of the 87 HFPA members showed up and none of them had watched the series. But some of the European film festivals like Cannes and Venice are just as bad as the American awards ceremonies. The European festivals still give premieres, awards and standing ovations to the Roman Polanskis and Woody Allens of the world, while ignoring films from BIPOC filmmakers. Ava DuVernay’s upcoming movie Origin was selected to premiere at Venice and it’s the first time in the festival’s eighty year history (!) that they are including a film directed by a Black woman. At a press conference, Ava admitted that people told her not to bother applying to the festival at all because she “won’t get in.” She was told that people in other parts of the world don’t care about stories from BIPOC directors or perspectives. But she hopes this is a door that the festival will “keep open.”

At the Venice Film Festival press conference for Ava DuVernay’s new film “Origin” on Wednesday, the director revealed that she has previously been told not to apply to the festival because “you won’t get in.”

DuVernay is making history this year as the first African American woman in the festival’s 80-year existence to have a film compete for the Golden Lion. “Origin,” starring Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor and Jon Bernthal, “chronicles the remarkable life and work of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson as she investigates the genesis of injustice and uncovers a hidden truth that affects us all,” according to the film’s official synopsis.

“For Black filmmakers, we’re told that people who love films in other parts of the world don’t care about our stories and don’t care about our films. This is something that we are often told: you cannot play international film festivals, no one will come,” DuVernay said. “People will not come to the press conferences, people won’t come to the P&I screenings. They will not be interested in selling tickets. You might not even get into this festival, don’t apply. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told, ‘Don’t apply to Venice, you won’t get in. It won’t happen.’ And this year, something happened that hadn’t happened in eight decades before: an African American woman in competition. So now that’s a door open that I trust and hope the festival will keep open.”

[From Yahoo]

This is one of the things that drives me nuts about Hollywood. The industry presents itself as being progressive, but it never really has been. It’s apparently similar in Venice. I’m not shocked it took this long for them to include a film directed by a Black woman, but it is discouraging. Being so racist and exclusionary is a dumb financial decision for studios and power brokers in the film industry. Like…do they not realize that diverse films like Black Panther and Parasite have done well and made money and made a cultural impact? On a global scale? I’m really happy this happened for Ava, because she has a track record of excellence and her work deserves to be recognized. But this also comes after she has been well-established in the industry and is one of a small number of name-brand directors who is not a white man in his seventies. If she had applied even five years ago, with a little less experience or name recognition, they probably wouldn’t have let her in. Though I share Ava’s hope that this is the start of a new trend prioritizing BIPOC filmmakers, I’m also skeptical that it will continue.

photos credit: IMAGO/Anna Maria Tinghino / Avalon