Twenty or twenty-one films in competition at Venice: sources do not agree on the number

This newspaper already compared, on August 30, Venice’s information model with that of Telluride. Today’s new element is more prosaic: not even the festival that declares everything has a single figure for its main competition.

The 83rd International Film Festival takes place at the Lido from September 2 to 12, 2026, with Alberto Barbera as artistic director. Sources diverge on the number of feature films in competition: Sky TG24 indicates twenty, iCrewPlay Cinema twenty-one, out of a maximum of twenty-one set by the regulations. The newspaper records the discrepancy without choosing between them: both sources declare they are drawing on the Biennale’s official programme, and in the available excerpts there is no named list allowing the matter to be settled by counting titles.

This is not pedantry. The regulatory ceiling of twenty-one is the constraint within which the artistic direction works, and the difference between twenty and twenty-one indicates whether the competition has been filled to the limit or whether a place has been left open. It is the kind of detail that will become clear once the screenings begin.

What the sources agree on

The opening film is «Ink» by Danny Boyle. The closing film, out of competition, is «Dio ride» by Giovanni Veronesi, scheduled for September 12 after the awards ceremony. The international jury is presided over by Maggie Gyllenhaal. The Golden Lions for lifetime achievement go to George Clooney and Ellen Burstyn.

The Italian films in competition are five, directed by Marco Bechis, Edoardo De Angelis, Andrea Pallaoro, Paolo Strippoli and Nanni Moretti, who returns to competition forty-five years later. The overall official selection comprises 88 feature films, 18 short films, one television series, 19 restored films and 68 works of Venice Immersive, with 62 countries represented. The figure of sixty-two countries is, of all of them, the one that says the most about the scale of the event: the main competition is a minimal fraction of what passes through the Lido.

Item	Number
Feature films in selection	88
In competition	20 according to Sky TG24, 21 according to iCrewPlay
Italians in competition	5
Restored films	19
Countries represented	62

The festival that does not publish its lineup

On the other side of the Atlantic, the 53rd Telluride Film Festival is held in Colorado from September 4 to 7, 2026. British-American actress, screenwriter and director Rebecca Hall is the guest director of this edition and will choose a series of films to present. As tradition dictates, the selections and the entire programme remain secret until shortly before the opening, according to a statement from the Telluride Film Festival and announcements collected by AwardsWatch.

Hall said: “This will be my first time at Telluride” (transl. from English).

The two calendars overlap for four days, from September 4 to 7. For productions aiming at awards season, the choice of showcase is therefore also a choice of exposure: at the Lido, a film enters a programme published weeks in advance and a competition with a jury; at Telluride, it enters a lineup that no one knows beforehand and with no prizes at stake.

What we don’t know

We don’t know what the actual number of films in competition at Venice is, and we don’t have the list of competing titles reported in full by a single source. Nothing is known of Telluride’s programme, by design: not even the number of works selected.

The first verifiable date is September 2, with the opening of the Mostra at the Lido; Telluride closes on September 7 and Venice awards its prizes on the 12th, five days later.