The Venice Film Festival will open with an A-list-celebrity bang.
“The Truth,” directed by 2018 Cannes Film Festival winner Hirokazu Kore-eda and starring Catherine Deneuve, Juliette Binoche and Ethan Hawke has been announced as the fest’s Opening Night feature.
The dramatic film features 75-year-old Deneuve as a glamorous French film star who causes a family crisis once her memoir is published. Binoche portrays her screenwriter daughter who’s married to Hawke.
The director took home the Palme d’Or — Cannes’ top prize — last year for his previous film “Shoplifters,” which received an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film last January.
“It is with great joy that I have learned that my new film, “The Truth,” has been selected to open the Official Competition of the Venice Film Festival,” said Hirokazu in a statement on the film festival’s official website. “I have tried to make my characters live within this small universe, with their lies, pride, regrets, sadness, joy and reconciliation.”
Now entering its 76th year, the renowned Venice festival — which kicks off Aug. 28 and ends Sept. 7 — is acting cagey, shrouding the other films vying for the coveted Golden Lion.
Last year’s Venice fest winners featured a slew of future Academy Award contenders. The top prize was presented to “Roma,” while the Grand Jury Prize went to “The Favourite.”
Snagging the Volpi Cup for Best Actor was Willem Dafoe for his performance as Vincent van Gogh in “At Eternity’s Gate” and the best actress was Olivia Colman, who snagged the Best Actress Oscar less than six months later for her performance as 18th-century British royal Queen Anne.
Other movies screened at the 2018 festival included “A Star Is Born,” “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” and “First Man.”
Even this year’s panel of judges remains a well-kept secret.
Last year, the nine-member judging panel included Mexican director Guillermo del Toro, actress Naomi Watts and two-time Oscar winner Christoph Waltz.
