A lineup of major feature films is premiering on Tuesday at the Venice Film Festival, highlighted by Alex Gibney’s documentary on Elon Musk, a psychological thriller starring Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem, and a new drama directed by Casey Affleck.
Running for nearly four hours with an intermission, Musk examines the world’s wealthiest individual, probing the extent of his authority and global reach. Gibney, the Oscar-winning documentarian behind investigations into Scientology, Enron and Elizabeth Holmes, told The Associated Press he initially admired his subject and sought an interview with him.
"Ultimately he didn’t want to talk to me," Gibney said. "Then you start digging into the facts and you follow them where they lead. And where they led for me was to a place that upended the myth, I would say, of Elon Musk as a kind of modern Leonardo da Vinci."
The documentary is scheduled for release in North American theatres in October.
Real-life married partners Cruz and Bardem bring star power to the festival with the launch of Bunker, a new film directed by Florian Zeller.
It follows an architect who agrees to construct a survival bunker for a billionaire, a choice that severely tests his marriage. Zeller created the project specifically for his two leads, whose onscreen collaborations trace back to Jamón Jamón.
Bunker touches on several contemporary themes – fear of the future, ecological threats, rising social inequality, and rampant individualism–but it does so through a deeply personal lens: a couple struggling with each other," Zeller said in his director’s statement. "I wanted to explore love, fidelity and forgiveness while placing the audience in a position of deliberate ambiguity."
The cast also features Stephen Graham, Paul Dano, and Patrick Schwarzenegger, with Searchlight Pictures slated to distribute the movie in cinemas early next year. Competing alongside competition entries such as Wild Horse Nine and Ink, the film is positioned as a potential contender during awards season, with a qualifying release expected in 2026. Zeller previously directed The Father, which earned Anthony Hopkins a Best Actor Oscar as well as a screenwriting award for Zeller.
Also screening is Company, an exploration of grief and empathy co-written and directed by Casey Affleck. Set during the winter of 1975, the film—which is currently seeking a distributor—begins when a holiday gathering is disrupted by an unexpected female visitor, triggering an internal story focused on a moral dilemma.
"I spent a lot of my life looking over the ledger, keeping score, frustrated by the debt of kindness. Somewhere along the way I began to realize that the ledger is never balanced by the world. It’s balanced by what you contribute," Affleck said in his director’s statement. "That’s what this film is reaching for."
Competing for the Golden Lion, Company stars Nick Nolte and Ben Mendelsohn, alongside Affleck’s children, Atticus Affleck and Indiana Affleck.
The festival’s awards, determined by a jury chaired by Maggie Gyllenhaal, will be presented on Saturday.
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