The 79th Venice Film Festival kicks off this evening when French screen diva Catherine Deneuve receives a career Golden Lion award. White Noise is the opening film.
Arriving at the Lido for the 79th edition of the world’s oldest film fest, the 79-year-old actress told reporters she had “never been sexy or an icon”. Nor does she have advice for aspiring actresses.
Deneuve was also reticent about a pin with the Ukrainian flag she was wearing on her chest. She said, “I don’t want to say anything because my words could be misunderstood”.
Italy has five films in the running for a Golden Lion award.
White Noise is first film to be shown
The first film in the competition is American director Noah Baumbach’s White Noise. Based on a book by Don DeLillo, White Noise stars Adam Driver, Greta Gerwig and Don Cheadle. White Noise examines an American family’s quest for happiness in an uncertain world.
“It is a great honour to open the 79th Venice Film Festival with White Noise,” said Festival Director Alberto Barbera. “It was worth waiting for the certainty that the film was finished to have the pleasure to make this announcement.
“Adapted from the great Don DeLillo novel, Baumbach has made an original, ambitious and compelling piece of art, which plays with measure on multiple registers: dramatic, ironic, satirical.
“The result is a film that examines our obsessions, doubts, and fears as captured in the 1980’s, yet with very clear references to contemporary reality.”
Baumbach is returning to the festival after premiering Marriage Story in Venice in 2019. That film also starred Driver. Alongside Scarlett Johansson, it showed a warring couple going through a coast-to-coast divorce. Laura Dern won the 2020 Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role.
