Many new features at the Venice International Film Festival 2025

The festival has 21 films competing for the main prize, and all have one thing in common: their length. “This year’s films are all between 2 hours and 2 hours and 30 minutes long,” said Alberto Barbera, artistic director of the Venice Film Festival 2025. “It’s a problem to include such long films in the festival program.” The length of a film makes it difficult for the jury to evaluate the work and screen it for the public. Specifically, “Frankenstein” by director Guillermo del Toro has a length of 149 minutes, while “Silent Friend” (pictured) by Ildikó Enyedi has a length of 145 minutes. In addition, many films such as “La Grazia”, “No Other Choice”, “Jay Kelly”, “Orphan”… all have a length of more than 130 minutes.

In the non-competitive film category, which was only shown at the Venice Film Festival, “Director's Diary” by veteran Russian director Aleksandr Sokurov has a running time of 305 minutes, or more than 5 hours. Experts say that the trend of long films is increasing, not only at film festivals but also in commercial films. A typical example is “Avatar”, parts 1 and 2 both have a running time of over 2 hours and the upcoming part 3, which will be released in December 2025, has a running time of over 3 hours. Alberto Barbera believes that this is a “new international standard” when like-minded producers make long films.

In addition, this year's Venice Film Festival recorded an increase in the scale and quality of documentaries. In previous festivals, there were only 6-10 documentaries, but this year there were up to 19 films. Alberto Barbera assessed: this sign shows that this production segment is developing, both in quality and public interest. Accordingly, some notable documentaries are: "Marc by Sofia" by Sofia about the portrait of fashion designer Marc Jacobs, "Ghost Elephants" by Werner Herzog about a mysterious herd of elephants in the Angolan jungle, "Cover-Up" by Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus about investigative journalist Seymour Hersh...

Another notable point at this year’s Venice Film Festival is the number of female directors. Of the 21 competing films, 6 were directed by female directors, showing an improvement in the number of women nominated and competing. Among them is the return of filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow - the first female director in history to win an Oscar with “The Hurt Locker” (2008). Kathryn Bigelow returns to Venice with “A House of Dynamite”. In addition, this list also includes notable names such as: Ben Hania, Fastvold, Valérie Donzelli, Ildikó Enyedi…

This year’s Venice Film Festival also features films from online platforms. Netflix was completely absent from the Venice Film Festival in 2024, but this year it has three very strong contenders: Baumbach’s “Jay Kelly,” Kathryn Bigelow’s “A House of Dynamite,” and Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein.” These films could very well be Oscar contenders in 2026. Meanwhile, Amazon MGM Studios is present with Luca Guadagnino’s “After the Hunt.” Mubi is present with four films competing for the prize: Sorrentino’s “La Grazia,” Park Chan Wook’s “No Other Choice,” Jarmusch’s “Father Mother Sister Brother,” and Nemes’ “Orphan.”

BAO LAM (Synthesized from Screen Daily, Thevenicefest, Variety)

Source: https://baocantho.com.vn/nhieu-net-moi-o-lien-hoan-phim-quoc-te-venice-2025-a189686.html