The Venice Biennale turns seventy this year.

With the fest a month away the organizers announced the nineteen films that will be a part of the official selection. They include, "Gravity" with George Clooney and Sandra Bullock, which will open the festivities on August 28. Titles like "Tom Farm" by Xavier Dolan, "Ana Arabia" by Amos Gitai, "Child of God" by James Franco

Pieta, a shocking new work by Korean filmmaker Kim Ki-Duk about a small-time crook’s attempted redemption after he rediscovers his humane side in a society corrupt by money won the Golden Lion for Best Film at the 69th Mostra last night. “I wish to thank all those who contributed to this film as well as the Venice Festival and Italian audiences, and, finally, the members of the jury,” the filmmaker said upon accepting his prize. Next

Stormy skies have threatened to overflow the lagoon and the part of this year’s Selection that’s already been screened is stoking an enthusiasm that’s mitigated. It’s near the end of the festival and this 69th edition of the Venice Film Festival is still struggling to gain traction and also get in step with the bold ambitions of its new artistic director, Alberto Barbera. And yet this year’s poster was handsome enough and significant changes have been

Terrence Malick has thrown things into high gear and, two [...]

The 68th Venice Film Festival was a pandemonium of pushy, autograph-hounding journalists, hapless stargazers and underage fashionistas talking their way into exclusive parties. Walking along the beach, as the late-summer sun beat down on the Lido, it was easy to forget that this festival was about movies of differing shapes and sizes, where big Hollywood productions vied with quirky indies and inaccessible foreign productions.

The surprise winner of the 68th Venice Film Festival was [...]

Marjane Satrapi’s “Poulet aux Prunes” (“Chicken with Plums”) is the French-Iranian filmmaker’s live-action adaptation of her namesake graphic novel. Co-directing once more with Vincent Paronnaud, who also worked on the 2007 film adaptation of “Persepolis,” Satrapi creates a fairly-tale 1950s Tehran as the backdrop for the story of Nasser Ali, a violinist (Satrapi’s uncle, or so she claims) who resolves to die