Two filmmakers will represent Latin America in the main competition for the Golden Lion at the 76th edition of the Venice Film Festival: the Colombian director Ciro Guerra withWaiting for the Barbarians, and Chilean director Pablo Larraín with Ema. Additionally, Mexican director Guillermo Arriaga will premiere his newest film No One Left Behind as an out-of-competition special screening.
Guerra’s Waiting for the Barbarians is the film adaptation of the acclaimed novel of the same name by South African writer J.M. Coetzee. Starring Johnny Depp, Robert Pattinson, and Mark Rylance, the film tells the story of a magistrate working in a distant outpost begins to question his loyalty to the empire.
Larraín’s eighth film, Ema, stars Mariana Di Girolamo, Paola Yanini, Santiago Cabrera, and Mexican actor Gael García Bernal, and tells the story of a woman who sets out on a risky quest to reset her life, after a terrible accident fractures her family and her marriage.
In the Horizons section of the festival, Chilean-Spanish director Théo Court will premiere Blanco en blanco, an epic story set in Chile at the beginning of the 20th century, about a photographer who is besotted with a girl.
As it was previously announced, Argentine director Lucrecia Martel will be president of the jury in this year’s festival, which was won last year by Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón with his semi-autobiographical film Roma.
The 76th Venice International Film Festival runs August 28 - September 7.
