Venice Film Festival Heats up With George Clooney, Emma Stone Premieres

VENICE, Italy (AP) — George Clooney plays a famous actor on a soul-searching journey and Emma Stone makes a turn as the CEO of a pharmaceutical company in two of the films premiering at the Venice Film Festival Thursday evening.

Clooney and Stone are among the many Hollywood actors, including Adam Sandler, Laura Dern and Jesse Plemons, expected to grace the red carpet with the world premieres of Noah Baumbach’s “Jay Kelly” and Yorgos Lanthimos’s “Bugonia.” Both films are vying for the coveted Golden Lion prize, the winner of which often goes on to get Oscar nominations and even wins.

Lanthimos is a Venice veteran, having just recently won the festival’s top prize for “Poor Things,” which would go on to win several Oscars, including best actress for Stone. The new film, “Bugonia,” is an English-language adaptation of a South Korean film, about two conspiracy-minded men (one of which is played by Plemons) who believe Stone’s character is an alien and kidnap her.

Baumbach, too, was on the Lido recently with his Don DeLillo adaptation “White Noise,” which went on to a less decorated awards run. “Jay Kelly,” he said in his director’s statement, “is about a man looking back at his life and reflecting on the choices, the sacrifices, the successes, the mistakes he’s made.”

The film features a large ensemble cast, including Sandler as the actor’s manager, Baumbach’s wife and oft-collaborator Greta Gerwig, Dern, Billy Crudup and Riley Keough. Like “White Noise,” “Jay Kelly” is a Netflix-produced film. After taking a year off from the festival, the streaming giant is back with three major films playing in competition, including Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein” and Kathryn Bigelow’s political thriller “A House of Dynamite.”

The 82nd edition of the festival kicked off Wednesday on the Lido. It runs through Sept. 6.