Five days into the autumn film festivals, we have a real award ceremony. Maybe even a Monster Awards season.
And for that, maybe we must thank a couple of iconoclastic international filmmakers and a couple of British literary works written 1600 and 1818, or on the other hand.
This is the conclusion after the first five days of the Venice Film Festival and the first three (of only four) of Telluride Film Festival, where Guillermo del Toro’s epic adaptation of “Frankenstein” and Chloé Zhao’s emotionally devastating Shakespeare -Riff “Port” Debuted and cemented as formidable challengers.
Some of the high -profile films that have so far premiered still have some work to do before they can be considered top dividends, but others came out of the gate with a stroke, and plenty may be on the fence as best felling jumps but is definitely in the mixture for other categories.
Venice, for example, started with Paolo Sorrentino’s “Grace,” A drama about a contradictory politician who seems to have become the favorite to be Italy’s submission in Oscar’s best international film film, the third time one of Sorrentino’s films will have been chosen. (It doesn’t hurt that he is the only director for the last 26 years who won an Oscar for Italy, something he did in 2013 with “The Great Beauty.”)
In the higher profiled English -language titles, Venice has revealed Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Bugonia,” A crazy sci-fi composition that can win over bold voters and may be too strange to mainstreamers, although Emma Stone and Jesse Plemon will undoubtedly get a lot of attention for the things they do for Yorgos; “Jay Kelly,” A Noah Baumbach mix of comedy and drama that has a showbiz setting (appealing to voters), a completely charming lead performance by George Clooney (Ditto) and a role with a fantastic set of name (Sag Ensemble or the new Oscar for Casting, anyone?); “After the hunt,” Luca Guadagnino’s story about problems in academia, which has proven to be predictable sharing (who knew that some people would make crimes in a movie about how easily people violate everything?) But also have the most significant Julia Roberts performance in several years.
The robust selection of documentaries that have been shown so far in Venice includes strong work from former winner Laura Poitras (“Cover-Up”, with Mark Obenhaus) and previously nominated Gianfranco Rosi (“Under the clouds”) and Tamara Kotevska (“The Tale of Sylyan”).
And then there is Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein,” An adaptation of Mary Shelley’s novel from 1818 and a monumental work, although some critics have thought that two and a half hours are too long. Given the film’s all-but-locked nominations in many categories below the line, and given his history with academy-sex nominations and three wins for “Pan’s maze”, plus best picture noms for three of his last four films, including a victory for “The Shape of Water”-this came from Saturday’s Venice premium In my book. (And by the way, everyone loves Guillermo. Everyone.)
Venice still has a week to go, and that week will contain potential challengers such as Kathryn Bigelow’s “A House of Dynamite”, Benny Sadfies “The Smashing Machine”, “The Brutalist” author Mona Fastvold’s “The Testament of Ann Lee” and Julian Schnabel’s “in the hand of dante.
Meanwhile, Telluride gathered with a day of views on Sunday and then some repeated views on Monday, but it has already given us a de facto best picture frontunner in Chloé Zhao’s “The port,” according to all reports A very emotional adjustment By the best -selling Maggie O’farrell novel about William Shakespeare and his wife in the wake of their young son death in the late 16th century, just before he wrote “Hamlet.”
You can expect more measured reactions to come when the film will shield more at sea level, but it is likely to have a new scary reaction to the fucking Toronto Film Festival next weekend and comes out of the first party of autumn festivals as the prospective leader. It is a very difficult position to maintain during the six and a half months between now and Oscars, but two films have done so in recent years: “Oppenheimer” 2023 and “Nomadland” (by, UM, Chloé Zhao) 2020.
Telluride also premiered “The ballad for a little player” by productive “All Quiet on the Western Front” and “Conclave” director Edward Berger and “Springsteen: Deliver me from nowhere” By Scott Cooper, who can both have best picture chances and will definitely be in the actor with Colin Farrell for the previous film and Jeremy Allen White and Jeremy Strong for the latter.
Granted, Film-Festival Surr should always be taken with more than a Modicum of suspicion: what is brilliant for viewers at the beaches of Adriatic or in the mountains of Colorado does not always maintain that appeal in more everyday surroundings. But at the moment it seems that the 2025-2026 season is on its way to a formidable start.
