Venice 2016: 73rd lineup announced

Wim Wenders, Emir Kusturica, Andrei Konchalovsky and Terrence Malick are all in competition, alongside some younger voices such as Ana Lily Amirpour – who scored a big success with A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night; Amat Escalante, director of the shocking Heli; and Rama Burshtein, who broke through with Fill the Void in 2012. Tom Ford will also be presenting his second movie, Nocturnal Animals, along with new films from Damien Chazelle – the Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone-starring musical La La Land – and Arrival, a sci-fi from Sicario director Denis Villeneuve. With Neruda soaking up the plaudits at Cannes, Pablo Larrain’s take on Jackie Kennedy, simply titled Jackie, comes as an unexpected treat – rumour had it that it wasn’t yet finished. Out of competition sees the return of Mel Gibson to the director’s chair with war drama Hacksaw Ridge and I Saw the Devil helmer Kim Jee-woon is back from his US sojourn with The Age of Shadows.

Familiar (even obligatory) festival presences James Franco (with a John Steinbeck adaptation now Faulkner is exhausted) and Austrian shock jock Ulrich Seidl will be on hand. With a decent number of debut films both in the Orizzonti section and the traditional Directors’ Fortnight and Critics’ Week sidebars, Venice will no doubt also provide us with those breakout moments when a new talent emerges. The big star value of closing film The Magnificent Seven and others will also give the paparazzi plenty to snap at on the Venice Lido but it will be in the dark of the auditorium that the festival will be made.