Clooney kicks off Venice as festival wades into war, Gaza and AI
Charismatic Clooney, 65, is a frequent red carpet guest at the world's oldest film festival, now in its 83rd year.
The American actor, of Ocean's Eleven and Gravity fame, will receive a Golden Lion lifetime achievement award on Wednesday night.
A household name from his role as Dr Ross in the television medical drama ER, Clooney went on to direct a host of films, including Good Night, and Good Luck and The Monuments Men, and is also known for his involvement in humanitarian causes.
Clooney is also set to sit on a panel at an international symposium at the festival, which will discuss what artificial intelligence technology means for the industry.
In an interview on the eve of the festival, director Alberto Barbera acknowledged the dangers but also the capabilities of the emerging technology, which has caused panic as well as excitement across a wide swathe of industries.
Besides understanding how to control the technology, people need to ask how it can "begin to harness the extraordinary potential of this unprecedented technology," he told the French news agency AFP.
Gaza on screen
American actress Maggie Gyllenhaal is the jury president for this year's competition, which features 21 films.
Opening the lineup of contenders for the Golden Lion is Ink, about the ruthless rise of businessman Rupert Murdoch to the top of the British media, from Trainspotting director Danny Boyle, who focuses on Murdoch's purchase of The Sun tabloid in 1969.
Staying with real life, the main competition's only documentary – Naza – is about the Israeli forces' killing of civilians in Gaza, from Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor.
The directors won an Oscar for 2024's No Other Land, which documented Israel's displacement of a Palestinian community in the West Bank.
How the last words of a little girl in Gaza became an award-winning film
At Venice's 2025 edition, The Voice of Hind Rajab, about a five-year-old Palestinian girl killed by Israeli troops, received a 23-minute standing ovation and took home the Grand Jury Prize.
Barbera told AFP it was essential that what is happening in Gaza and the Middle East be talked about through the medium of film.
"There are no fewer than four films that deal with the Palestinian issue and the current situation in Iran, so there can be no doubt about where we stand on this matter," Barbera said in an interview on Tuesday.
Related documentaries at Venice include Citizen Osama, about a photojournalist in Gaza, and Road to Jericho, about the Israeli-occupied West Bank, from Israeli director Amos Gitai.
Kaouther Ben Hania receives the Grand Jury's Silver Lion Prize for "The Voice of Hind Rajab" at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival, on 6 September 2025.
Ukraine row
Competing for the top Golden Lion prize is a film already creating a stir is Dau by Ilya Khrzhanovsky. The multi-year film project about Soviet physicists has drawn criticism from Ukraine's government which said it was "linked to the Russian state and its influence networks".
Khrzhanovsky issued a detailed rebuttal saying Ukraine was making "factually incorrect assertions" and pointing out that he had renounced his Russian citizenship in protest at the war with Ukraine.
Among the American films in competition is Wild Horse Nine, from the director of In Bruges, Martin McDonagh, with John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell as eccentric CIA agents.
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Other contenders include Venice veteran Werner Herzog, with his feature Bucking Fastard starring sisters Kate Mara and Rooney Mara, and US director Lance Oppenheim, whose Primetime about a reality TV show to catch paedophiles, stars Robert Pattinson.
Florian Zeller's psychological thriller Bunker features real-life Spanish power couple Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem who play partners in a faltering marriage whose relationship is tested by a lucrative professional project for a billionaire played by Paul Dano.
Two of Asia's acclaimed filmmakers, Japan's Hirokazu Koreeda and South Korea's Lee Chang-dong, are also in the main competition with their latest Look Back and Possible Love.
Absence of big studios
Absent this year are the big Hollywood premieres that have been a Venice hallmark in recent years – a pattern seen at other European festivals from Cannes to Berlin.
Many studios have preferred to launch films through their own tightly controlled premieres instead of at festivals, which risk harsher reviews from critics.
An exception is the Disney-produced out-of-competition documentary Don't Look Back in Anger, covering last year's comeback tour of Manchester rock band Oasis and the reconciliation of long-feuding brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher.
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Also out-of-competition is a documentary about the world's richest man Elon Musk, by Oscar-winning US filmmaker Alex Gibney, simply entitled Musk.
Gibney, best known for Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room and Taxi to the Dark Side, has called his latest film an "unvarnished" look at the powerful and culturally influential entrepreneur.
Kicking off the second week, US veteran Ellen Burstyn will be handed a Golden Lion for an acting career spanning six decades, at a ceremony on Monday.
The 93-year-old star of The Exorcist will play a fictionalised, ageing Marilyn Monroe in Maggie Gyllenhaal's short film Flesh Impact.
The Venice International Film Festival runs from 2-12 September.