Three South American filmmakers—Pablo Larraín from Chile, Walter Salles from Brazil, and Luis Ortega from Argentina—were announced today as contenders in the Golden Lion competition at the 81st edition of the Venice Film Festival, which will take place from August 28 through September 7.
Larraín returns to the Golden Lion race for a fourth time—after Post Mortem (2010), Jackie (2016), and El Conde (2023)—with the biographical drama Maria, about opera singer Maria Callas, starring Angelina Jolie in the title role. Salles will world premiere his latest film I’m Still Here / Ainda Estou Aqui at Venice. The film is an adaptation of Marcelo Rubens Paiva's book of the same name, and stars Fernanda Torres and Fernanda Montenegro as Eunice Paiva, a mother and activist searching for her missing husband, congressman Rubens Paiva, during the Brazilian Military Dictatorship.
Ortega will compete with Kill the Jockey / Matar al jockey, the story of Remo (played by Nahuel Pérez Biscayart), the best jockey of his generation, whose addictions, however, have gradually cast a shadow over his glory. The Argentine film also stars Úrsula Corberó, Daniel Giménez Cacho, and Mariana Di Girólamo.
Academy Award-nominated Brazilian director Petra Costa (The Edge of Democracy) will participate out of competition with her latest documentary Apocalypse in the Tropics, which investigates Brazil’s descent into religious fundamentalism during the COVID-19 pandemic and President Bolsonaro’s leadership. The documentary portrays a country divided by a holy war with conflicting visions of faith, science, power, and solidarity.
Also premiering out of competition in the Non-Fiction sidebar of the Italian festival is Separated, a Mexican co-production and the latest film by acclaimed American documentarian Errol Morris. It addresses the separation of parents and children at the US-Mexico border.
Lastly, Academy Award-winning director Alfonso Cuarón will participate out of competition with the psychological thriller television miniseries Disclaimer, starring Cate Blanchett and Kevin Kline. The series is based on the 2015 novel of the same name by Renée Knight, about a famed documentary journalist who discovers she is a prominent character in a novel that reveals a secret she has tried to keep hidden.
