Venice Film Festival lineup features Julia Roberts, George Clooney, Emma Stone and Dwayne Johnson

Julia Roberts George Clooney Emma Stone Dwayne Johnson Adam Sandler and Idris Elba are just chosen of the celebrities headlining films at this year s Venice International Film Festival Organizers on Tuesday unveiled the starry lineup for its nd edition which kicks off a busy fall film festival season in August Two years after launching Poor Things at Venice Yorgos Lanthimos and Stone are returning with Bugonia an English language remake of the South Korean sci-fi comedy Save the Green Planet that is among the films playing in the main competition Clooney will also be back as star of Noah Baumbach s Jay Kelly in which he plays a famous actor on a trip through Europe with his longtime manager Sandler Chosen of the other high-profile titles competing for the Golden Lion include Guillermo del Toro s Frankenstein with Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein and Jacob Elordi as the monster Benny Safdie s sports drama The Smashing Machine starring Johnson as MMA fighter Mark Kerr and Emily Blunt as his wife and Olivier Assayas s The Wizard of the Kremlin in which Jude Law plays Vladimir Putin and Paul Dano plays his spin healthcare provider Also in competition are Kathryn Bigelow s A House of Dynamite a political thriller about an imminent missile strike on the U S starring Idris Elba and Rebecca Ferguson and Jim Jarmusch s anthology film Father Mother Sister Brother with Cate Blanchett and Adam Driver Multiple master filmmakers are also in the section Park Chan-wook will debut No Other Choice L szl Nemes has his largest part personal film yet in Orphan and Fran ois Ozon takes on an Albert Camus adaptation with L tranger One of the titles bound to make waves is Kaouther Ben Hania s The Voice of Hind Rajab about the young girl who was killed along with six other relatives when they were trapped in their car under Israeli fire in northern Gaza Luca Guadagnino s After the Hunt a psychological thriller for the MeToo era about a complaint of sexual violence at an American university is debuting out of competition a joint decision between the filmmaker and Amazon MGM It will mark Roberts first time at the festival She co-stars in the film with Andrew Garfield and Ayo Edebiri Julian Schnabel s In the Hand of Dante based on the cult novel with Isaac Gal Gadot Al Pacino and Martin Scorsese is also showing out of competition as is Gus Van Sant s Dead Man s Wire with Bill Skarsg rd Colman Domingo and an appearance by Pacino The festival held on the Lido a barrier island in the Venetian Lagoon will open with Paolo Sorrentino s La Grazia starring Toni Servillo and Anna Ferzetti on Aug and run through Sept Alexander Payne is presiding over the main competition jury which also includes actor Fernanda Torres and directors Cristian Mungiu Mohammad Rasoulof and Maura Delpero Venice has established itself as a solid launching pad for Oscar hopefuls with a handful of best picture winners including The Shape of Water Spotlight Nomadland and Birdman and several more nominees to its name Last year s edition had several eventual Oscar winning films in the lineup including Brady Corbet s The Brutalist which won three including best actor for Adrien Brody Walter Salles best international feature winner I m Still Here and the animated short In the Shadow of the Cypress Corbet co-wrote another competition entry with his partner Mona Fastvold who directed The Testament of Ann Lee with Amanda Seyfried Like The Brutalist it was also shot on mm but is quite a bit shorter Venice will be just the first stop for several films including Frankenstein and The Smashing Machine which will all go on to play at the Toronto Film Festival shortly after The festival has programmed documentaries out of competition including Golden Lion winner Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus s Cover-Up about investigative journalist Seymour Hersh Sofia Coppola s documentary Marc by Sofia about her longtime friendship with fashion designer Marc Jacobs Werner Herzog s doc Ghost Elephants described as being as exciting as a thriller and Kim Novak s Vertigo Both Novak and Herzog are being honored with lifetime achievement awards during the festival The story has been updated to remove a reference to Chlo Zhao s Hamnet which is not expected to be shown at the festival Source