Coffee with Venezia da Vivere Returns: Our Selection from the Venice Film Festival 2026
We are all at the Lido for the Venice Film Festival 2026. As I write, the entire team is already in Sala Darsena watching Ink by Danny Boyle or in the Press Room preparing cameras for the day’s first Red Carpet, while outside I hear voices calling “George! George!” because this year’s Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement has arrived.
Yesterday photographers attended the customary appointment with the “host” Greta Scarano (the term host is no longer used) on the beach of the Hotel Excelsior, on the cover (thanks Igor Serdyukov, Marta Formentello). Actress and director, Greta Scarano will host the opening and closing evenings of the 83rd Venice International Film Festival of La Biennale di Venezia together with actor Nicolas Maupas.
After watching Ink by Danny Boyle, some will follow the press conference and I will go—I can’t wait—to the island of Lazzaretto Vecchio for Venice Immersive, which I will tell you about later.
Pietro Gallina of Veneziacinema.com guides us through the films and filmmakers to follow at the Lido, with some less obvious titles to keep an eye on and his invaluable perspective. Thank you, Pietro!
We are ready.
George Clooney and Danny Boyle Open the Festival
In the opening days of the 83rd edition we begin with George Clooney and Danny Boyle, continuing with Martin McDonagh, Werner Herzog, Gianni Amelio, Cédric Kahn, and Shinya Tsukamoto.
The opening day of September 2 revolves around George Clooney, who receives the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement before the screening of the opening film this evening.
Clooney is by now a familiar presence at the Venice Film Festival: from his first participation in 1998 with Out of Sight by Steven Soderbergh, he has returned to the Lido as actor, producer, and director, also participating in two opening films, The Ides of March and Gravity.
Read more: George Clooney Golden Lion, a Love Story with Venice and the Film Festival
Opening the competition is Ink by Danny Boyle, a film adaptation of James Graham’s theatrical work dedicated to the rise of Australian producer Rupert Murdoch. Boyle thus returns to major cinema after a career that includes Trainspotting and Slumdog Millionaire, with which he won the Oscar.
On the same day, the Orizzonti section also begins with The Girl with the Leica by Alina Marazzi, adapted from Helena Janeczek’s novel and dedicated to photographer Gerda Taro.
September 3: McDonagh, Herzog, and Amelio
The first full day of the Festival brings together three very different directors.
Martin McDonagh returns to competition with Wild Horse Nine, the story of two CIA agents sent to Easter Island in the 1970s. The cast includes John Malkovich, Sam Rockwell, Steve Buscemi, Tom Waits, and Parker Posey.
Werner Herzog presents Bucking Fastard, starring Kate and Rooney Mara and Orlando Bloom. After several documentary works seen in recent years in Venice, the film marks his return to narrative cinema.
Out of competition comes Gianni Amelio with Nessun dolore, featuring Alessandro Borghi, Valeria Golino and Valerio Mastandrea. The film addresses the theme of immigration in contemporary Italy, shifting the gaze from the Mediterranean to the cities and, in particular, to Rome.
September 4: Cédric Kahn, Tsukamoto, and La città dei vivi
On Friday, September 4, the competition enters darker territories.
French director Cédric Kahn presents 15/18 (A Place To Heal), set in the psychiatric wards for adolescents in French public hospitals. After Making Of, presented in Venice in 2023, Kahn returns with a film that examines the fragilities of adolescence and the wounds of contemporary society.
With Mr. Nelson, Did You Kill People?, Japanese master Shinya Tsukamoto tells the story of Allen Nelson, a marine sent to Vietnam in the 1960s and haunted throughout his life by the atrocities witnessed and committed during the war.
Among the Italian titles to follow is also La città dei vivi by Edoardo Gabbriellini, in competition in the Orizzonti section. The film takes as its starting point the murder of Luca Varani, which occurred in Rome in 2016, to tell the story of the victim and the city surrounding the event.
Off Course: Paul Schrader and Iranian Cinema
Also out of competition returns Paul Schrader with The Basics of Philosophy, starring Jack Huston and Bill Pullman. At the center is once again a typically Schrader figure: an isolated man, this time a philosophy professor, forced to confront his own identity and his own lies.
In the opening days of the Festival it is also worth following the presence of Iranian cinema.
In Orizzonti, Moragheb (Falling House) by Mohsen Gharayi tells the story of a prison guard suspended from work and the conflict with his daughter who wants to leave Iran.
Among the Orizzonti short films is Bleu Au Loin (Distant Blue) by Iranian director Amir Houshang Moein, while at Venice Days I Plant My Hand in the Garden, directed by Boris Hadžija and Hoda Taheri, follows an Iranian refugee in Berlin and a queer Serbian man who decide to marry and raise a child together.
All the films of the Festival are on the Biennale di Venezia website, with links to purchase tickets and information on how to reach the Venice Film Festival 2026.
Coffee with Venezia da Vivere continues in the coming days in partnership with Veneziacinema.com, Pietro Gallina’s project of articles on cinema in Venice, and the podcast Venice Cinema in Bites: brief daily episodes with the voice of Danilo Maggi, dedicated to films and events at the Lido, available free on Spotify.
Article by Pietro Gallina (VeneziaCinema.com), with opening by Laura Scarpa. Photos by: Marta Formentello, Rossana Viola, Igor Serdyukov, Pietro Gallina.
