73rd Venice Film Festival Lineup Has Been Announced

So the Venice Film Festival lineup was announced this morning and I have to say that I can't help but feel disappointed by their selections. You can read the full list of films in competition by clicking this link here and hopefully try to make sense of this mess.

First off, I'll get the positives out of the way. It's neat that they have The Magnificent Seven as their closing film even if it's out of competition. They also have The Light Between Oceans in competition which is neat because I'm pretty excited for that one. They even have the biopic about First Lady Jackie Kennedy called Jackie starring Natalie Portman and directed by Pablo Larrain. So they have some female-centered films in the mix which is nice.

However, what left me disappointed is that even in the films not in competition, there are hardly any women directors represented. In the main competition slot, the only films directed by a woman are The Bad Batch by Ana Lily Amirpour and Spira Mirabilis which is co-directed by Martina Parenti. That's less than the amount of women directors in competition at Cannes this year and they had three. Also, there were some films I was hoping would make it that didn't like Una, How To Talk To Girls At Parties, A United Kingdom, and Moonlight. Una, I think could've used a competition slot so that it could maybe get picked up by a U.S. distributor sooner rather than later since it is already competing at Toronto. But we'll see what happens when it screens at Toronto and/or if it gets picked up before then.

Thankfully, the Venice Film Festival isn't as much of a factor in the awards race as Telluride and especially Toronto. But they will likely serve as a factor for films that are in the running
like La La Land, Arrival, and Nocturnal Animals. They're in competition so they will likely be watched by critics and awards pundits like a hawk. Also, because both Arrival and Nocturnal Animals star Amy Adams, she's looking stronger for Best Actress.

Anyways, those are my thoughts on the Venice Film Festival lineup for this year. Please feel free to write your thoughts in the comments section on what you think and whether or not you're as disappointed as I am. Thanks for reading!