Thursday, July 22, 2010

Black Swan to Open Venice Film Festival

While the full line-up of the 67th Annual Venice Film Festival has yet to be unveiled, their website is confirming that Darren Aronofsky's latest, Black Swan, will be the opening night attraction, and be in competition.  Described as a psychological drama set in the New York Ballet, focusing on the rivalry between two ballerinas, played by Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis.  The supporting cast includes Barbara Hershey, Vincent Cassel, and Winona Ryder.  I'm sooo looking forward to this, so I wish I was in the film elite and that I could fly to Venice on a whim for this.  The movie is being released later this year by Fox Searchlight Pictures.

Aronofsky's latest triumph, The Wrestler won the top award at the Venice Film Festival in 2008, where it debuted and assuredly awed.  As an avid fan of Mr. Aronofsky's work (even the the much reviled The Fountain is such an incoherently interesting feature, it's hard to completely loathe, I'd say-- I think it flawed, but hypnotic), I'm anxious and nervous about this one, but since he's proven such an assured, often brilliant filmmaker, I think it's safe to say, that at the very least, there's a nugget of something here.  Just as so, I'm always curious about the major film festival, and the big ones (Venice and Toronto) are just over a month away.  Venice starts September 1 to September 11.

While other titles haven't been made official yet, speculation is that Julian Schnabel's latest, Miral, his follow-up to 2007's The Diving Bell & the Butterfly starring Frieda Pinto (Slumdog Millionaire) will debut as well, as well as Sofia Coppola's latest, Somewhere, starring Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning (remember Lost in Translation made it's big splash in 2003 at Venice for a sense of history), as well as Tom Hopper's (HBO's John Adams), The King's Speech starring Colin Firth and Helena Bonham Carter.  The big question however is if Terrence Malick's latest, The Tree of Life, might make it's premiere at Venice, after missing on Cannes.  I have a feeling I may never see it!

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