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Festival coverage

Venice Film Festival

30 August – 8 August 2017

Downsizing opened the festival
Downsizing opened the festival

The Venice film festival notched up its 74th festival in 2017. Running from August 30 to September 8, it opened with Alexander Payne's Downsizing. The Golden Lion was won by Guillermo Del Toro's The Shape Of Water.

British filmmaker Stephen Frears (Prick Up Your Ears) will receive the Jaeger-LeCoultre Glory to the Filmmaker award. Jane Fonda and Robert Redford will receive Golden Lion awards, while their film Our Souls At Night will premiere out of competition.

Other years (10)

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Latest reviews

  • Racer And The Jailbird
    Review preview for Racer And The Jailbird

    As entertaining as the above is with its two charismatic leads, it is not an especially novel path for a 'crime couple' thriller to take, and it is in the last act that Racer kind of goes off the rails.

    Owen Van Spall · 3 out of 5
    In the Belgian underworld, a secret threatens a couple's romance.
  • Pin Cushion
    Review preview for Pin Cushion

    With a keen eye for absurdity and the hypocrisies of suburban life, Haywood finds comedy in the bleakest situations.

    Jennie Kermode · 4.5 out of 5
    Trouble brews after the unusually close bond between a mother and daughter is disrupted when they move to a new town.
  • Sweet Country
    Review preview for Sweet Country

    There is artistry here and an absence of cliche.

    Angus Wolfe Murray · 4 out of 5
    Australian frontier drama, told from an Aboriginal perspective.
  • First Reformed
    Review preview for First Reformed

    First Reformed ends up being a satisfying meditative echo rather than a simple replay of Schrader greats.

    Owen Van Spall · 4 out of 5
    Thriller centring on an ex-military chaplain who has lost his son and a member of his church who is grieving for her husband.
  • Zama
    Review preview for Zama

    This is a very particular film - one where particles of detail crystallise into observation, meaning and import accreting like nacre around grit, producing a pearl, a natural jewel.

    Andrew Robertson · 4 out of 5
    A 17th century army officer in Ascuncion, awaits transfer to Buenos Aires.
  • Western
    Review preview for Western

    It quite subtly toys with the iconography of the genre - poking at the outlying parts of it, the parts dealing with "foreigness" and "home" rather than the more dependable elements of right and wrong.

    Rory Ford · 3.5 out of 5
    A group of German construction workers on a job in Bulgaria begin to compete for the approval of the locals.
  • The Third Murder
    Review preview for The Third Murder

    The lightness of touch so evident in his family films is no less deft here, as he woos us with the promise of cast iron fact.... only to spend the rest of the film oiling the ground beneath our beliefs until they can't stop sliding this way and that

    Amber Wilkinson · 4.5 out of 5
    Leading attorney Shigemori takes on the defence of murder-robbery suspect Misumi - a crime he admits - but as he digs into the case, he begins to wonder if his client is guilty after all.
  • No Date, No Signature
    Review preview for No Date, No Signature

    No Date, No Signature is a moral maze in which superb performances mean we can never lose sight of the human impact of what might seem like logical decisions.

    Jennie Kermode · 4.5 out of 5
    A pathologist is riven with guilt after the death of a child.
  • Nico, 1988
    Review preview for Nico, 1988

    This is astonishing filmmaking.

    Andrew Robertson · 4.5 out of 5
    Biopic of the German singer, who sang with the Velvet Underground
  • Foxtrot
    Review preview for Foxtrot

    Samuel Maoz steps into the rhythm of the foxtrot to give structure to the three separate chapters of his intense, reverberating film.

    Anne-Katrin Titze · 4.5 out of 5
    A family's world is rocked when they are told about the death of their son.

A–Z of Venice Film Festival 2017 reviews

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