Sorrentino, Ozon and Sokurov: Venice Film Festival 2025 program

Opening the competition this year will be cult Italian director Paolo Sorrentino with his film La grazia – with Toni Servillo (“The Great Beauty”) and Anna Ferzetti in the lead roles.

Further on, the list is no less impressive. Along with Sorrentino for supremacy in the main screening will compete avant-garde Yorgos Lanthimos, who will show his new creation – a fantastic comedy “Bugonia” with Emma Stone; Guillermo del Toro and his “Frankenstein; Olivier Assayas with the political thriller “The Kremlin Wizard” – with Jude Law as Putin; a new film by French director François Ozon “L’entranger”; the film László Nemesz “Orphan”, co-produced by Alexander Rodnyansky; and other films.

Luca Guadagnino will present his new thriller “After the Hunt” in the out-of-competition program. The main roles in the tape performed by Julia Roberts and Andrew Garfield. The plot of the picture was inspired by the famous social movement to combat sexual violence and harassment #MeToo. In the same section, cult director Gus Van Sant will show the film Dead Man’s Wire, and Alexander Sokurov will present his documentary Diary of a Director.

Also during the festival plan to present a joint project of Ukrainian-Russian producer Alexander Rodnyansky and Ukrainian film critic Andrei Alferov – “Notes of a true criminal”.

“The title reflects my current life circumstances: a Russian court sentenced me in absentia to 8.5 years in prison. But that’s not what the movie is about, it includes most of my personal experience and turns out to be a lifetime long. And mine, and that of my family.
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It contains a lot of things – the mass shooting of Jews in Babi Yar, and the Soviet attempt to destroy the memory of this tragedy, and Chernobyl, and the collapse of the USSR, and the referendum on Ukrainian independence, and the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Germany, and, of course, the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022…”, – writes Alexander Rodnyansky in his Instagram.

Main competition

• La grazia, directed by Paolo Sorrentino;
• The Wizard of Kremlin, directed by Olivier Assayas;
• Father Mother Sister Brother, directed by Jim Jarmusch;
• Bugonia, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos;
• Jay Kelly, directed by Noah Baumback;
• The voice of Hind Rajab, directed by Kauter Ben Hania;
• A House of Dynamite, directed by Kathryn Bigelow;
• The sun rises on us all, directed by Cai Shangjun;
• Frankenstein, directed by Guillermo Del Toro;
• Elisa, directed by Leonardo Di Costanzo;
• A pied D’oeuvre, directed by Valerie Donzelli;
• Silent Friend, directed by Ildiko Enyedi;
• The Testament of Ann Lee, directed by Mona Fastvold;
• Duse, directed by Pietro Marcello;
• Un Film fatto per benne, directed by Franco Maresco;
• Orphan, directed by Laszlo Nemes;
• L’entranger, directed by François Ozon;
• No other choice, directed by Park Chang Wook;
• Sotto le Nuvole, directed by Gianfranco Rosi;
• The Smashing Machine, directed by Benny Safdie;
• Girl, directed by Shu Qi.

Non-competitive program

• Director’s Diary, directed by Alexander Sokurov;
• Dead Man’s Wife, directed by Gus Van Sant;
• After the Hunt, directed by Luca Guadagnino;
• How to shoot a ghost, directed by Charlie Kaufman;
• Back Home, directed by Tsai Mingliang;
• In the Hand of Date, directed by Julian Schnabel.

Horizons Section

• Il Rapinento di Arabella, directed by Carolina Cavali;
• Strange river, directed by Jaume Claire Muksar;
• Lost Land, directed by Akio Fujimoto;
• Grand Ciel, directed by Akihiro Hata;
• Mother, directed by Teona Strugar Mitevska;
• Divine comedy, directed by Ali Asghari;
• Hiedra, directed by Ana Cristina Barragan;
• Un Ano di Scuola, directed by Laura Samani;
• The Souffleur, directed by Gaston Solnicki;
• Barrio Triste, directed by Stills;
• Human Resourse, directed by Navapul Thamrongrattanarit;
• Funeral casino blues, directed by Roderick Varich.
• Rose of Nevada, directed by Mark Jenkin;
• Late Fame, directed by Kent Jones;
• Milk Teeth, directed by Mihai Minchan;
• Pin de Fartie, directed by Alejo Mogilansky;
• Father, directed by Teresa Nwotowa;
• En el Camino, directed by David Pablos;
• Songs of forgotten trees, directed by Anuparna Roy;