La Grazia, the latest feature from Italian filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino, will open the Venice Film Festival.
The film stars Toni Servillo and Anna Ferzetti will have its world premiere screening on Wednesday, 27 August in the Sala Grande.
La Grazia, written and directed by Sorrentino. Very little about the film’s plot is known, but sources close to the film have told Deadline that the film follows the final days of a fictional Italian Presidency.
The feature is a Fremantle film produced by The Apartment, Numero 10, and PiperFilm, which will distribute in Italy. Mubi owns worldwide rights, excluding Italy. The Match Factory is handling international sales.
“I am very happy that the 82nd Venice International Film Festival will open with the new and highly anticipated film by Paolo Sorrentino,” Venice head Alberto Barbera said in a statement, adding that Sorrentino’s career began at Venice in 2001 with first feature One Man Up.
“The relationship with the Venice Film Festival became consolidated over the years with the presentation out of competition of the first episodes in the series The Young Pope (seasons one and two) and, above all, with The Hand of God which, in 2021, won the Silver Lion-Grand Jury Prize,” Barbera added. “Paolo Sorrentino’s return in competition comes with a film destined to leave its mark for its great originality and powerful relevance to the present time, which the audiences of the Venice Film Festival will have the pleasure of discovering on opening night.”
Born in Naples in 1970, Sorrentino’s credits include The Consequences of Love and The Family Friend, which both competed for the Palme d’Or in Cannes in 2004 and 2006 respectively, while his film Il Divo won the Jury Prize in 2008. He returned In Competition at Cannes in 2011 with This Must Be the Place and two years later with The Great Beauty, which won an Academy Award, a Golden Globe and a BAFTA award for Best Foreign Language Film as well as three European Film Awards. His last feature Parthenope debuted at Cannes in 2024.
