Robert De Niro, Brad Pitt, Kristen Stewart, Scarlett Johansson, Catherine Deneuve… A new rain of stars is expected at the Venice film Festival. The selection this year will be marked by a reflection on the status of women, ensures the organization, destabilized by an early controversy about the presence of Roman Polanski and the under-representation of women directors in the selection. Only two women are presented in competition, out of a total of 21 movies: Haifaa Al Mansour with The Perfect Candidate and Shannon Murphy with Babyteeth .

” READ ALSO – The Truth of Kore-eda will inaugurate the Festival, 2019

Many of the 21 feature films in competition for the golden Lion at this 76th edition to discuss this topic and “reveal a new sensitivity, even when they are made by men, evidence that the polemics of the last few years have marked our culture,” replied Thursday, the director of the venice film Festival, Alberto Barbera. “Another salient fact is that many of the works work to reconstruct how thorough and realistic the events of the past, allowing us a replay of the problems of the present”, he added in introducing to Rome the official selection.

The 76th edition of the festival will open on 28 August with the screening of The Truth ( The Truth ), the last work of the Japanese Kore-eda Hirokazu, on the bill, the two French stars Catherine Deneuve and Juliette Binoche. As every year, american stars and big hollywood productions will gather for this appointment now inevitable stage in the oscar race.

Joaquin Phoenix in the Joker

actor Brad Pitt will walk the red carpet with the highly anticipated Ad Astra , his fellow countryman James Gray, science fiction film, produced by 20th Century Fox, where he plays an astronaut who ventures to the outer reaches of the solar system in search of her missing father. Robert de Niro will be present for the Joker , production Warner signed Todd Phillips that explores the origins of the famous adversary of Batman, with a Joaquin Phoenix blackface clown. Steven Soderbergh will complete the trio of american filmmakers with The Laundromat , a thriller on the matter of the Panama Papers with Antonio Banderas, Gary Oldman and Meryl Streep.

for the filmmaker, saudi Haiifaa Al-Mansour, it will be this year, on his return to Venice, where she had presented Wadjda in 2012, The Perfect Candidate , the story of a woman who decides to stand in the local elections in Saudi Arabia.

Other returns are expected in the City of the doges, those of the Swedish director Roy Andresson (golden Lion 2014) with About Endlessness , and the actress star chinese Gong Li, who will defend Saturday Fiction , of his compatriot Lou Ye, where she plays an actress, a spy in the Shanghai of 1941.

The Dreyfus affair was seen by Roman Polanski

The French filmmakers will be represented by Olivier Assayas, who in Wasp-Network returns on the true story of five spies cubans during the period castro, and Robert Guédiguian, who will present Gloria Mundi , with his favourite actors Ariane Ascaride and Jean-Pierre Daroussin. The director of the franco-Polish Polanski will be in the race for the golden Lion with his j’accuse , historical drama, inspired by the Dreyfus Affair with Jean Dujardin in the uniform of a lieutenant-colonel Georges Picquart, who has rehabilitated the captain unfairly convicted.

the Two filmmakers of Latin americans will defend their chances in front of the jury, chaired by the director of argentina Lucrecia Martel: the Colombian Ciro Guerra, to Waiting For The Barbarians with Johnny Depp, and the Chilean Pablo Larrain, who, after having given to Jackie Kennedy in the traits of Natalie Portman, will offer a new portrait of a woman with Ema .

In the running also, The Painted Bird of the Czech Vaclav Marhoul will take festival-goers in “a descent into the infinite cruelty of human”, has announced that Alberto Barbera. This film, “sometimes violent” taken from the novel’s controversial Jerzy Kosinski (1965), tells the story of a jewish child that his parents send to his grandmother at the beginning of the war to save them from persecution.

Three Italian films will be in competition on their land: Il Sindaco Del Rione Sanita Mario Martone, La Mafia Non è Piu Quella Di Una Volta ( The Mafia is not what it was ) by Franco Maresco, and Martin Eden signed Pietro Marcello.

The 76th edition of the Mostra, which will award the golden Lion on 7 September, will also be on the Lido, the american actress, Scarlett Johansson who will present Wedding Story , the canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan to Guest of Honor and the rockstar british Mick Jagger, who will make his return to the cinema in The Burnt Orange Heresy , presented out of competition.

The 21 films in competition for the golden Lion at the 76th annual Mostra film festival in Venice, from August 28 to September 7, 2019

The Truth ( The Truth ) of Kore-eda Hirokazu projected opening of the festival, The Perfect Candidate of Haifaa Al-Mansour, About Endlessness of Roy Andersson, it Wasp-Network Olivier Assayas, Wedding Story of Noah Baumbach, Guest of Honor Atom Egoyan’s Ad Astra of James Gray, Has Herdade of Tiago Guedes, Gloria Mundi by Robert Guediguian, Waiting For The Barbarians of Ciro Guerra, Ema by Pablo Larrain, Martin Eden Pietro Marcello, La Mafia Non è Piu Quella Di Una Volta ( The Mafia is not what it was ) of Franco Maresco, The Painted Bird of Vaclav Marhoul, Il Sindaco Del Rione Sanitade Mario Martone, Babyteeth Shannon Murphy, Joker by Todd Phillips, j’accuse of Roman Polanski, The Laundromat Steven Soderbergh, No. 7 Cherry Lanede Yonfan.