{"id":781672,"date":"2026-07-24T11:09:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T11:09:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/781672\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T11:09:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T11:09:15","slug":"venice-festival-lineup-alberto-barbera-on-the-studios-ai-gender-gap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/781672\/","title":{"rendered":"Venice festival Lineup: Alberto Barbera on the Studios, AI, Gender Gap"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tArtistic Director Alberto Barbera<\/a> unveiled the lineup for the 83rd Venice International Film Festival <\/a>on Thursday, and, as ever, there is no shortage of auteur firepower headed for the Lido.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe competition slate includes Primetime, starring and produced by Robert Pattinson<\/a>; Bunker, with Pen\u00e9lope Cruz and Javier Bardem; Ink, featuring Jack O\u2019Connell, Guy Pearce and Claire Foy; and The Echo Chamber, led by Alicia Vikander. There are also hotly anticipated new features from Martin McDonagh (Wild Horses Nine), Lee Chang-dong (Possible Love) and Werner Herzog (Bucking Fastard).<\/p>\n

\n\tBut compared with last year \u2014 when Jacob Elordi, Dwayne Johnson, Emma Stone, George Clooney and Julia Roberts helped turn Venice into a red-carpet supernova \u2014 the wattage is noticeably dimmer. The lineup is also light on Hollywood studio fare, continuing a troubling pattern seen this year in Berlin and Cannes: the majors are increasingly ghosting the big festivals<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tEqually glaring is the gender imbalance. Of the 20 films in competition, just one \u2014 May El-Toukhy\u2019s Danish drama Woman Unknown \u2014 has a female director. Nearly a decade after Barbera signed the 50\/50 by 2020 pledge<\/a> to improve representation for women filmmakers at Venice, the numbers offer little evidence of progress.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a wide-ranging conversation with The Hollywood Reporter, Barbera addressed the studio slowdown, Venice\u2019s gender-parity setback and whether AI-made films may have a future on the festival circuit. <\/p>\n

\n\tHow are you doing?<\/p>\n

\n\tPretty good. Actually, I\u2019m exhausted already. Now I have to work on the screening schedule. Everybody wants to play on the first weekend, which is impossible. Then we have actors who have obligations and commitments because they are on set somewhere and can only come for 20-24 hours. It\u2019s extremely complicated and difficult. Just endless discussion. Over the next two weeks we\u2019ll redo the schedule several times. It\u2019s a nightmare. The worst part of my job.<\/p>\n

\n\tWell congratulations at least in finalizing the lineup. What are you most proud of in your selection this year?<\/p>\n

\n\tThe fact that the combination of films is both big names and young talents. We have newcomers from all over the world. Which of course is part of our mission, to reflect world cinema. But this year is much more varied than previous years. There are a lot of discoveries, a lot of newcomers. In the main competition we only have nine films from filmmakers who attended Venice before. The others are completely new to the main competition. Some of them are pretty young, and very talented.<\/p>\n

\n\tWe also have a lot of documentaries, very strong documentaries, more than usual, this year. They are so strong and very relevant and I think they will have an impact. We gave up the idea of screening many TV series this year, also because, from a quality point of view, they weren\u2019t so interesting. We prefer to show more documentaries.<\/p>\n

\n\tOne thing I noticed was, like at other big festivals this year, there aren\u2019t many big studio movies.<\/p>\n

\n\tNo, no big studio films. Because they aren\u2019t available. The only [studio movie] we were hoping to land in Venice was the [Alejandro G.] I\u00f1\u00e1rritu film<\/a> with Tom Cruise [Digger]. But Warner Brothers decided not to do any festival and to release the film at the beginning of October, skipping all the festivals. That their marketing strategy. There was no room to discuss it with them.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut there were no other big studio films available in time. The films the trades have been speculating about in the last two or three months simply weren\u2019t ready. Alan Sorkin\u2019s film [The Social Reckoning] is not ready. They decided to reshoot some sequences in August, so the film won\u2019t be ready in time for Venice. David Fincher\u2019s film [Brad Pitt-starrer The Adventures of Cliff Booth], which is highly anticipated, for us too, isn\u2019t ready because Fincher had to pause for personal reasons. It has been slightly postponed and will be probably ready in October, but not in time for for Venice.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut there were no other major disappointments because the films weren\u2019t ready. Can you name a single film from a studio that was ready and is not in Venice? Of course Dune 3 isn\u2019t ready. It\u2019ll be released around Christmas.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe problem isn\u2019t that the studios chose not to bring their films to Venice, the films simply aren\u2019t finished. I wouldn\u2019t say it\u2019s a trend that the studios are skipping the festivals. It\u2019s a temporary situation, the result of the film production schedule that the big festivals like Cannes and Venice don\u2019t have access to.<\/p>\n

\n\tNext year we\u2019ll see. Maybe the studio will come back to the festival. Or maybe not. Because we do know that all the studios are re-thinking their marketing strategies, because marketing films has become more complicated and more difficult. If you have a blockbuster, if you have a Tom Cruise film, it\u2019s easy. You release the film and the people come. With other movies it\u2019s more difficult because the traditional marketing tools don\u2019t work anymore and they are still building the new tools. So we will see what happens.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs marketing strategies change, does that change the role a festival like Venice plays in the industry?<\/p>\n

\n\tI don\u2019t see any big changes in the near future. The future, by definition of course, is unpredictable. But I can\u2019t see a big revolutionary change in the role of the festivals. If the big Hollywood movies decide to skip the festivals, we will work to improve our role in promoting independent films, new talents, and new filmmakers \u2014 auteur cinema from around the world. Which is part of our mission and something we\u2019ve always done. Maybe we will just be doing more of that.<\/p>\n

\n\tOne film I was surprised not to see in the lineup was Luca Guadagnino\u2019s Artificial. Was that ready? Did you screen it?<\/p>\n

\n\tYes. I saw the film. I love the movie. I think it\u2019s a great, great movie. The only problem was Neon only bought it a few weeks ago [after Amazon MGM dropped the film]. I had a long discussion with [Neon boss] Tom Quinn. He said he was very sorry. He sees the film as a strong contender for the Oscars next year. But they won\u2019t be ready to release the movie until early 2027. They\u2019ll do a release in December to qualify for the Oscar but they aren\u2019t ready yet. I think that the film was probably quite expensive for them. They spent a lot of money to buy the film. Now they need to sell it all over the world and they don\u2019t want [to premiere] the film before selling it everywhere. So they decided to skip the fall festivals [for] a straight commercial release. It\u2019s unfortunate because the film is really, really good.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou and the Venice festival tend to stay above the fray when it comes to political discussions, but in his comments today, Biennale chairman Pietrangelo Buttafuoco made a very political statement, slamming the decision by the European Commission to withdraw a \u20ac2 million ($2.3 million) grant to the Biennale\u2019s arts exhibition. Mr. Buttafuoco suggested the loss of the grant could impact the Venice festival, particularly on funding for the Biennale College and the Venice Production Bridge programs. Is that the case?<\/p>\n

\n\tLuckily enough, no. The decision by the European Community will not impact the Venice production bridge or the Biennale College. It was supposed to be \u20ac2 million over three years, so it means less than \u20ac700,000 [$796,211] a year, which we can cover with our own budget. I wouldn\u2019t say we are not worried. We are. We are sad and frustrated by the decision, which is just a matter of politics and unacceptable.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s well known that you and Mr. Buttafuoco don\u2019t share the same politics. [Buttafuoco is a right-wing writer and journalist.] But you seem to work very well together. How do you manage that, despite the political differences I assume are there?<\/p>\n

\n\tOf course they are. Everybody knows that, it\u2019s not a secret. But it\u2019s actually very simple. He is extremely, extremely respectful of my autonomy as artistic director of the festival. He never interferes in my choices. He is one of the most respectful men I have ever worked with. It\u2019s very easy working with him. This is the opinion of everybody working at the Biennale. He has succeeded in creating a space where everyone feels free to support the artists we champion, where there is freedom of expression and space for confrontation and discussion between people who don\u2019t necessarily share the same political opinions.<\/p>\n

\n\tOne more political question. Back in 2018 you signed the 50\/50 by 2020 pledge to try and increase gender parity at the Venice film festival<\/a>, increase the number of female directors in competition. How do you assess your progress, given that this year out of the 20 directors in competition, you have only one woman?<\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019m very sorry about that. I\u2019m actually desperate. I would love to be able to find more films, more female-directed films to put in competition. But it simply was not possible. For many reasons. The number of films made by women has decreased, which is quite strange and hard to understand.<\/p>\n

\n\tFrom 2018, 2019, 2020, we saw the figures improving year after year. From female directors making up 18-19 percent of film production to more than 30 percent. But for feature films [this year] there were fewer than 24 percent directed by women. And the quality of the ones we saw was not such that we could put them in competition. The only one was from the Danish director [May el-Toukhy\u2019s Woman Unknown].<\/p>\n

\n\tI don\u2019t know why this is, but I know the other sections, the independent sections in Venice, had the same problem. I think it\u2019s a temporary negative situation. I hope next year will improve again, we\u2019ll get more films made by women and the quality will improve. It\u2019s difficult for us to understand. But we are at the end of a chain that we don\u2019t know control. There are choices made by the producers, by financiers. It\u2019s a matter of the budgets [being given to female directors]. I\u2019m very sorry about the situation but there was nothing we could do. We don\u2019t want to select the competition on the basis of gender, but on the quality of the films. Of course quality is a subjective category but we take the responsibility that our choices are made on the basis of the quality of the films rather than any other criteria.<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking of selection criteria, there\u2019s obviously a big discussion around the use of artificial intelligence in cinema. You have a documentary screening out of competition [Be Brave] that was made almost entirely using AI. What\u2019s Venice\u2019s position on the use of AI in the films? Would you select a film for competition that was made using AI?<\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019m very interested in AI because it\u2019s an incredible, and powerful tool that, without a doubt, will have a major impact on mankind. It will completely change the world of production. Not only in cinema but in every field of human activity.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe problem is that so far most of the things we read about artificial intelligence are focused on the negative impact. And it\u2019s true, these are very dangerous tools. But I think it\u2019s time to discuss the possibility of how we can use this incredibly powerful tool in the service of the creativity of a filmmaker. We know most films are already using AI in some form, even if they aren\u2019t talking about it. What is interesting to understand is how can you use AI differently in film production, in film creation. This documentary is a sort of experiment by an Italian production company to show how you can use AI under the total control of a filmmaker, to create something you couldn\u2019t do without the technology, or it would very difficult.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s a way to open the discussion about the possible uses of the AI in film creation. We know AI is here to stay and will become more and more important in film production. The thing that we need to understand is how we can use AI to suit the aims of the artist or creator. That\u2019s the reason why we\u2019re open to films made by AI. But only ones made under the complete control of the artist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Artistic Director Alberto Barbera unveiled the lineup for the 83rd Venice International Film Festival on Thursday, and, as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":781673,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[73007,236,88,2695,2091,2872,48125,332222,24350],"class_list":["post-781672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-alberto-barbera","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-film","tag-international","tag-oasis","tag-robert-pattinson","tag-venice-2026","tag-venice-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=781672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/781673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=781672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=781672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=781672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}