The Venice Film Festival has no official market — no Marche du Film, no European Film Market — meaning the deals on the Lido are likely to occur quietly, in hotel suites on the Excelsior and over spritzes along the Lungomare. But sellers still see the festival as a main launchpad, using it to drift prestige projects to the best buyers, banking on critical heat to position art house titles that might otherwise vanish in a crowded marketplace.
“It’s a unique type of hustle,” says one veteran European sales agent. “You’re not going to Venice to presell a title and shut out your financing in every week. But for the best finished film, it could be the place that generates that first wave of buzz and gets buyers excited so you possibly can close deals in Toronto and beyond.”
This 12 months’s lineup should give buyers plenty to work with. Politically charged dramas and hard-hitting documentaries dominate alongside geopolitical thrillers and a handful of star-driven titles with crossover potential, meaning Venice 2025 could prove a critical — and quiet — game changer for sellers seeking to make noise without the market.
100 NIGHTS OF HERO
DIRECTOR Julia Jackman
STARS Nicholas Galitzine, Maika Monroe, Emma Corrin, Charli XCX, Richard E. Grant, Felicity Jones
BUZZ Based on Isabel Greenberg’s graphic novel, Jackman’s feature debut reimagines a feminist fairy tale of forbidden love, seduction and survival told through 100 haunting stories. With an intriguing ensemble and a classy pedigree, 100 Nights of Hero has the makings of a crossover art house hit.
SALES WME Independent (international), WME Independent/CAA Media Finance (domestic)
BELOW THE CLOUDS
DIRECTOR Gianfranco Rosi
BUZZ Rosi, a Golden Lion and Golden Bear winner, returns with an intimate homage to Naples, the third in his trilogy on on a regular basis Italian life after Sacro GRA and Fire at Sea. Expect strong festival interest and high-end doc buyers on the lookout for prestige nonfiction with cinematic flair.
SALES The Match Factory
COVER-UP
DIRECTORs Laura Poitras, Mark Obenhaus
BUZZ Oscar winner Poitras (Citizenfour, All of the Beauty and the Bloodshed) teams with Obenhaus for a portrait of legendary investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who exposed the Vietnam War massacres at My Lai, investigated Watergate, CIA domestic spying and Abu Ghraib. Prestige doc buyers might be watching closely.
SALES Submarine
DEAD MAN’S WIRE
DIRECTOR Gus Van Sant
STARS Bill Skarsgård, Colman Domingo, Al Pacino, Dacre Montgomery, Myha’la
BUZZ Van Sant’s Venice out-of-competition entry, originally arrange as a project with Werner Herzog and Nicolas Cage, dramatizes the real-life 1977 hostage crisis in Indianapolis, through which a disgruntled borrower wired a shotgun to a bank manager in a tense standoff. The high-profile solid and true-crime edge make this a hot industrial prospect for the best indie buyer.
SALES WME Independent
HIJRA
DIRECTOR Shahad Ameen
BUZZ The Saudi director of Scales (Venice 2019) returns with an ambitious desert-set drama concerning the bond formed between different generations of ladies on a deadly journey. With its striking landscapes, rare take a look at Saudi society and feminist undercurrents, this must be a must-watch for festival programmers and specialty distributors.
SALES CAA Media Finance
IN THE HAND OF DANTE
DIRECTOR Julian Schnabel
STARS Oscar Isaac, Gal Gadot, Gerard Butler, Al Pacino, Jason Momoa, Martin Scorsese, John Malkovich
BUZZ Art film expert Schnabel, director of Basquiat, At Eternity’s Gate and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, adapts Nick Tosches’ novel a couple of handwritten manuscript of The Divine Comedy passing from the Vatican to the Latest York mob to Tosches himself. A star-packed ensemble and literary intrigue could lure each prestige distributors and awards-minded buyers.
SALES WME Independent, co-repped by CAA Media Finance
LOST LAND
DIRECTOR Akio Fujimoto
BUZZ Following his acclaimed refugee dramas Passage of Life and Along the Sea, the Japan-born, Vietnam-raised filmmaker presents a world co-production (Japan, France, Malaysia, Germany) that continues his exploration of migration, displacement and identity. With Fujimoto’s growing popularity on the festival circuit, Lost Land is poised to draw global art house and socially engaged buyers.
SALES Arizona Distribution
MOTOR CITY
DIRECTOR Potsy Ponciroli
STARS Alan Ritchson, Ben Foster, Pablo Schreiber, Lionel Boyce, Shailene Woodley
BUZZ In Seventies Detroit, an ex-con is out for revenge after being framed by a gangster for loving the unsuitable woman. Gritty period motion with a muscular solid, including Reacher star Ritchson, positions this for mainstream distributors on the lookout for elevated genre fare.
SALES Black Bear Pictures (international), WME Independent/Stampede Ventures (domestic)
NUESTRA TIERRA (LANDMARKS)
DIRECTOR Lucrecia Martel
BUZZ Martel’s documentary examines the murder of indigenous leader Javier Chocobar, connecting it to Argentina’s colonial legacy and the continuing struggle for land rights. Political, poetic nonfiction must be in demand amongst doc buyers and human rights-focused distributors.
SALES The Match Factory (international), Cinetic Media (domestic)
ROSE OF NEVADA
DIRECTOR Mark Jenkin
STARS George MacKay, Callum Turner, Rosalind Eleazar
BUZZ After netting critical acclaim and sleeper success along with his first two indie efforts — 2019’s Bait and 2022’s Enys Men () — Cornish director Jenkin heads to Venice along with his most ambitious feature yet, a sci-fi drama centered on a pair of fisherman (played by MacKay and Turner) who board a mysterious boat and find themselves transported back in time.
SALES Protagonist Pictures
THE LAST VIKING
DIRECTOR Anders Thomas Jensen
STARS Mads Mikkelsen, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Sofie Gråbøl
BUZZ Jensen reteams along with his Riders of Justice leads for a dark comedy genre-tinged tale of two brothers on a quixotic hunt for stolen loot — and themselves. Quirky Scandinavian humor plus Mikkelsen’s global star power should prove irresistible to international buyers.
SALES TrustNordisk
THE TESTAMENT OF ANN LEE
DIRECTOR Mona Fastvold
STARS Amanda Seyfried, Thomasin McKenzie, Lewis Pullman, Stacy Martin, Tim Blake Nelson, Christopher Abbott, Matthew Beard
BUZZ Fastvold’s historical drama musical casts Seyfried as Ann Lee, 18th century founding father of the Shakers. With a powerful ensemble and period musical ambition, this might appeal to art house and prestige buyers on the lookout for something each historical and offbeat.
SALES Charades (international), CAA Media Finance (domestic)
THE VOICE OF HIND RAJAB
DIRECTOR Kaouther Ben Hania
BUZZ The Oscar-nominated Tunisian filmmaker dramatizes the true story of 5-year-old Hind Rajab, killed throughout the ongoing Israeli invasion of Gaza. Extremely timely and deeply emotional, it will draw strong interest from politically engaged speciality distributors.
SALES The Party Film Sales (international), CAA Media Finance (domestic)
THE WIZARD OF THE KREMLIN
DIRECTOR Olivier Assayas
STARS Paul Dano, Jude Law, Alicia Vikander, Zach Galifianakis, Tom Sturridge, Jeffrey Wright
BUZZ Adapted from Giuliano da Empoli’s best-seller, Assayas’ political thriller follows Kremlin insider Vadim Baranov throughout the USSR’s collapse and Putin’s rise. A starry solid — including Law as Putin — alongside prestige source material and timely geopolitical intrigue gives this title strong international appeal.
SALES Gaumont (international), CAA Media Finance (domestic)
TIRED OF KILLING
DIRECTOR Daniele Vicari
STARS Gabriel Montesi, Vinicio Marchioni, Selene Caramazza, Rocco Papaleo
BUZZ Count on Venice to serve up a healthy serving of Mafia movies, with this Calabrian-set crime drama among the many finest on the menu. The director of Diaz and The Human Cargo adapted Antonio Zagari’s autobiographical novel for this feature, a glance contained in the inner workings of Italy’s ‘Ndrangheta crime syndicate through the eyes of a reluctant hit man.
SALES Beta Cinema
This story appeared within the Aug. 20 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.