Venice 83, twenty films in competition and seven hours of Guadagnino on Bertolucci

The eighty-third International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art takes place at the Venice Lido from September 2 to 12, 2026, under the direction of Alberto Barbera. The competition includes twenty films. The details are in the Biennale’s official announcement, reported by Sky TG24 and by Il Post.

The opening, on September 2 in the Sala Grande, is entrusted to Danny Boyle’s “Ink”, starring Jack O’Connell, Guy Pearce and Claire Foy. The closing film is out of competition, with Giovanni Veronesi’s “Dio ride”, starring Pierfrancesco Favino and Silvio Orlando.

Five Italians out of twenty. In competition are works by Marco Bechis, Edoardo De Angelis, Andrea Pallaoro, Paolo Strippoli and Nanni Moretti. A quarter of the main selection is thus national, in a festival held in Italy: this is a proportion that should be noted before being commented upon, since it signals a choice by the artistic direction rather than an automatic given. The sources consulted do not report the number of Italian titles in previous editions, so it is not possible to establish whether this represents an increase or a continuity.

The rest of the list builds a clearly international profile: among the films in competition are works by Martin McDonagh, Werner Herzog, Hirokazu Koreeda and Shinya Tsukamoto. Two Japanese directors in competition in the same edition — one with an established career on European festival circuits, the other coming from independent cinema — point to a specific interest by the selection in East Asian production.

The jury is chaired by Maggie Gyllenhaal.

The matter of duration. Among the anticipated titles is “Joie de vivre”, Luca Guadagnino’s new documentary dedicated to Bernardo Bertolucci. The screening, out of competition, is set for Tuesday, September 8 in the Sala Casinò, at the Palazzo del Casinò on the Lido; at 3.00pm, before the screening, an award is scheduled to be presented to the director. The documentary runs for approximately seven hours, according to Movieplayer.

Seven hours is a measure that redefines the object: this is not a documentary that fits into a festival day, it is a festival day. Anyone who watches it in the theater gives up the rest of that day’s program, and the choice to schedule it on September 8 — midway through the event — requires the organization to make a marathon screening coexist with the ordinary flow of presentations. A portrait of an Italian director made by another Italian director, in that form, is also a statement about the kind of attention that auteur cinema demands from audiences.

Careers honored. The Golden Lions for lifetime achievement of this edition go to George Clooney and Ellen Burstyn.

For those planning to attend. Online ticket bookings open on Thursday, August 27, six days before the opening. This is the only operational detail with a near-term deadline among those released so far: the complete screening schedule by date and venue does not appear in full in the sources consulted, and for most of the twenty films in competition the time of the first screening is not yet public.

Three dates are to be marked: August 27 for the opening of bookings, September 2 for “Ink”, September 12 for the closing.