The Venice Film Festival has returned, and with it the unofficial start of the year’s most important stretch of cinema. As the oldest film festival in the world unveils its lineup on the Lido, the industry turns its attention to the titles that will shape the awards conversation and define the coming months.
Venice has long held a particular place in the film calendar. Its position at the turn from summer to autumn makes it the launchpad for the prestige season, the festival where the year’s major contenders first meet audiences and critics, and where reputations are established before the long campaign that follows. A strong Venice premiere can set a film’s course for months.
This year’s programme carries the usual mix of the anticipated and the unexpected. Alongside the established names arrive the discoveries, the films that enter with little fanfare and leave as the talk of the festival, their fortunes transformed by a single screening on the Lido. That unpredictability is much of what keeps the festival essential.
For the industry, Venice is where the season’s narrative begins to take shape. The films that emerge from the festival with momentum enter the autumn as contenders, while those that falter face a harder road. As the festival unfolds, it offers the first real map of the cinematic year ahead, and the earliest sense of which films will matter most.