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Venice Film Festival · 2026

Venice Film Festival 2026

Orizzonti

In addition to the films below, there are a number of shorts in competition

Programme

21 films · 6 reviews

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Big Little Things

A seemingly perfect middle-class Chinese family faces an unprecedented situation when their daughter, Lei, brings a man home on New Year s Eve to pretend to be her boyfriend. Her same-sex girlfriend's unexpected visit intertwined her with a real intimacy crisis.

(Country: US, Hong Kong; Year: 2026; Director: Michelle Tong Zhou; Writer: Michelle Tong Zhou; Stars: Cuishan Liang, Jialing Sun, Bin Yu, Ling Hu, Hai Yu)

World premiere

The Burning Giants (Yak Mai)

A mysterious toxic smog is infecting Keren Mountain people, an ethnic minority in Thailand. Men and women get a bizarre skin condition. The government official forest marshalls consequently burn down their villages. A good excuse to make way for a new national park soon after the pandemic. When one of the Keren women, working as a nanny, hears of a lone mountainman who has been captured, she abandons everything to hopefully find her lost husband.

(Country: Thailand; Year: 2026; Director: Phuttiphong Aroonpheng; Stars: Awat Ratanapintha, Pakapol Srirongmuang, Waywiree Ittianunkul, Tanatwut Rodpai)

World premiere

Children Of The Monkey (I figli della scimmia)

Review preview for Children Of The Monkey

This boys’ club doesn’t offer anything new in the way of insight.

Edin Custo · 3 out of 5
Dario is the father of a child with a disability, to whom he devotes all his care and attention, and shares a close bond with his teenage nephew. As their relationship grows increasingly intense, he begins to see in the boy the son he had always wished for...

(Country: Italy; Year: 2026; Director: Tommaso Landucci; Writer: Tommaso Landucci, Damiano Femfert; Stars: Riccardo Scamarcio, Fausto Russo Alesi, Lidia Liberman, Cristina Odasso, Tancredi Naldini, Andrea Aggio, Luigi Diberti)

Full review

The City Of The Living

Recounts the interrupted coming-of-age of a young man searching for his place in the world.

(Country: Italy; Year: 2026; Director: Edoardo Gabbriellini; Writer: Edoardo Gabbriellini, Damiano D'Innocenzo, Fabio D'Innocenzo; Stars: Emanuele Maria Di Stefano, Valerio Mastandrea, Simona Senzacqua, Roberta Mattei, Gaia Merlonghi)

World premiere

The Color Of The Sun

Drama about a couple on the way to see a solar eclipse.

(Country: Canada, Italy, Japan; Year: 2026; Director: Charlotte Kennett; Writer: Charlotte Kennett; Stars: Doris McGill, Dawn Harris)

World premiere

A Common Story (Una Storia)

Erika and Mauro, a seemingly solid couple, see their equilibrium falter when their daughter decides to leave home for her studies and a sense of emptiness begins to surface.

(Country: Italy; Year: 2026; Director: Anna Foglietta; Writer: Anna Foglietta, Tania Pedroni, Matteo Ferri; Stars: Alba Rohrwacher, Guido Caprino, Elio De Capitani, Caterina Casini)

World premiere

A day In The life Of Jo: Chapter Phaedra

Jo, melancholic, wild and only 15 feels shy to listen to music she truly likes, yet with Phaedra’s etheric song, her heart skips a beat and all quietly shifts. It's a day of changes.

(Country: Greece, Romania, France, Germany; Year: 2026; Director: Jacqueline Lentzou; Writer: Jacqueline Lentzou)

World premiere

Diane In The Loop (Un détour par Diane)

Review preview for Diane In The Loop

Unexpectedly playful given the weight of the subject

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
When a woman discovers her mum was raped some years before she was born, she plans vengeance, but her mother has other ideas. Things become complicated.

(Country: Belgium; Year: 2026; Director: Ann Sirot, Raphaël Balboni; Writer: Ann Sirot, Raphaël Balboni; Stars: Ninon Borsei, Sandrine Blancke, Lucas Meister, Naidra Ayadi, Jo Deseure, Peter Van Den Begin)

Full review

The Difficult Bride

Review preview for The Difficult Bride

Hossain keeps the mood claustrophobic.

Amber Wilkinson · 3.5 out of 5
In contemporary Dhaka, a bride-to-be preparing for her dream wedding begins to lose control of her body as beauty rituals, social expectations, and supernatural forces collide, transforming her journey toward marriage into an unsettling search for freedom.

(Country: Bangladesh, Germany, France, Norway, Portugal; Year: 2026; Director: Rubaiyat Hossain; Writer: Rubaiyat Hossain; Stars: Zaineen Karim Chowdhury, Reekita Nondine Shimu, Sunerah Binte Kamal, Azmeri Haque Badhon, Dameer Khan, Saberi Alam, Shatabdi Wadud, Mohammad Bari)

Full review

World premiere

Eklipse

A 12-yaer-old who is spending summer with his best friend Chris, finds the friendship falls apart after Chris learns Tomy's father in hospital with AIDS.

(Country: Austria; Year: 2026; Director: Manuel Wetscher; Stars: Moritz Hohlrieder, Finley Brown, Hannes Perkmann, Lenz Moretti, Lisa Schützenberger)

World premiere

Falling House (Moragheb)

A longtime prison guard is suspended for an unforgivable mistake and suddenly discovers his eldest daughter plans to emigrate to become a model. Determined to stop her, he does everything in his power to prevent her from leaving home.

(Country: Iran, Germany, US; Year: 2026; Director: Mohsen Gharaie; Stars: Farhad Aslani, Laleh Marzban, Rima Raminfar)

World premiere

The Girl With The Leica (La ragazza con la Leica)

Review preview for The Girl With The Leica

Marazzi is so focused on the frame of her life that the picture of Taro itself feels lost in the shuffle.

Amber Wilkinson · 2.5 out of 5
Paris, July 14, 1937. Gerda Taro spends her final day before returning to the Spanish front with her Leica alongside Robert Capa - one of the great loves of her life - and the friends with whom she fled Nazi Germany.

(Country: Italy, Germany; Year: 2026; Director: Alina Marazzi; Writer: Alina Marazzi, Valia Santella; Stars: Emilia Schüle, Aaron Altaras, Lucas Englander, Luna Wedler, Sebastian Schneider, Thomas Schubert, Idan Weiss, Hans-Christian Hegewald, Lia von Blarer, Jeremy Mockridge, Joel Basman, Francesca Biliotti)

Full review

World premiere

House Of The Wind (La Maison Du Vent)

Review preview for House Of The Wind

Ultimately, it is the universality of a diasporic child judging an older parent’s decisions through the distorting lens of distance, age and solitude that will resonate with many.

Edin Custo · 3.5 out of 5
Josette (80) lives alone in Yaoundé, Cameroon. All her children have left for the West. She encourages them to build houses in Cameroon, a ploy to bring them back to her. But the unexpected bond she forms with Sarah, a young woman from her neighborhood, shatters everything she has built her life on: her family, her responsibilities, and her hopes.

(Country: Cameroon, Benin, France, Belgium; Year: 2026; Director: Auguste Kouemo Yanghu; Writer: Auguste Kouemo Yanghu; Stars: Josette Kwanya, Moudjeu Pouadeu Edwige Tatiana)

Full review

World premiere

I Figli Della Scimmia

Dario is the father of a boy with cerebral palsy who has cognitive and motor impairments and is visually impaired. The strain mounts until Dario finds himself more deeply bonded to his brother’s son than to his own. But his actions begin to put his family at risk.

(Country: Italy, France; Year: 2026; Director: Tommaso Landucci)

World premiere

Lovers In The Blue Night

Dram follows four migrants - a closeted gay husband, his wife who works in a bar, a petty thief and a pimp - whose lives intersect.

(Country: India, US; Year: 2026; Director: Anuparna Roy; Writer: Anuparna Roy, Nikhil Lama; Stars: Neelima Sharma, Pritam Pilania, Bhusan Shimpi, Jatin Sarin, Kajal Keshav, Vinod Suryavanshi)

World premiere

La Moula

Thanks to Charlie, a cocaine trafficker, and his gangster associates, Jérôme, a struggling organised crime reporter, sees an opportunity to reboot his career. While waiting for a drug shipment near Marseille, the possible presence of a cop puts them all in danger…

(Country: France; Year: 2026; Director: Jérôme Pierrat; Writer: Jérôme Pierrat; Stars: Jérôme Pierrat, Kader Benchoudar, Jean Ruimi, Jean-Michel Correia, Thierry Coignard, Patrice Kouyoumdjian, Jean-Mathieu Frattaci, Fethi Makdoudi, Michel Ucciani, Jacques Sordi, Sébastien Lefebvre, Pierre Folacci, Laurent Serafini, François Darietto)

World premiere

Oasis

When a viral video of a student threatening his classmates surfaces online, the school spirals into escalating violence. Crushed by the pressure of teachers and parents, three outcasts take refuge in a nearby forest.

(Country: Germany, Austria; Year: 2026; Director: Jannis Lenz; Stars: Florian Geißelmann, Anton Petzold, Mathilda Smidt, Godehard Giese)

World premiere

Too Much Sugar

Ryan “Holli-wood” Holliger is a charismatic, pit bull of a man with six kids by five different women. His best friend AccRite is a rapper and laborer, dealing with an unimaginable loss. They have big dreams of making their own movie about fatherhood in their working class Missouri town. Over the course of one pivotal, madcap year, the film becomes something else entirely: a vehicle for accountability, healing and self discovery for their families.

(Country: US; Year: 2026; Director: Robert Greene; Stars: Ryan Holliger, Michael Midgyett, Amanda Sanner, Gavin Jones, Wayde Holliger, Bonnie Holliger, Hank Holliger, Tray Martin, Candy Woods, Ashley Long, Auveon Jackson)

World premiere

Until The Day Ends (Do kraja dana)

Two teenagers protesting political repression flee together.

(Country: Serbia, Slovenia, Montenegro, Bulgaria; Year: 2026; Director: Jelena Maksimović; Writer: Olga Dimitrijević, Jelena Maksimović, Ivan Salatić; Stars: Lena Trifunović, Andrija Krivokapić, Miodrag Dragičević, Irina Hotomski, Stefan Tarabić, Raško Milatović, Milica Institucija, Marina Fartzova, Aleksandar Milošević, Dušan Pavlović, Slobodan Ilić, Marko Džudović, Nataša Radenković Čakardić, Dragan Timčić)

World premiere

Un Détour Par Diane

Diane despises men as much as she desires them. Her mother was raped three years before her birth. When Diane finds out, she has only one goal: avenging her mother. But her mum has one thing on her mind: finally becoming the woman she should have been.

(Country: Belgium; Year: 2026; Director: Ann Sirot, Raphaël Balboni; Writer: Ann Sirot, Raphaël Balboni; Stars: Ninon Borsei, Sandrine Blancke, Lucas Meister, Naidra Ayadi, Jo Deseure, Peter van den Begin, Geoffrey Carey)

World premiere

What Belongs To Others (Cudze rzeczy)

Review preview for What Belongs To Others

In his modern world of apartment blocks and estranged family members, even comfort is cold.

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
Kasia earns her living by breaking into other people's homes. One day on the job she finds a dead body of a man and decides to move into his apartment and find out who he was. As she starts to piece together his memories, relationships and secrets, it awakens in her a dream of another life and gives her strength to make changes in her own.

(Country: Poland; Year: 2026; Director: Grzegorz Dębowski; Writer: Grzegorz Dębowski; Stars: Monika Kwiatkowska, Robert Mania, Ewa Pająk, Martyna Rozwadowska, Jadwiga Grygierczyk)

Full review

World premiere