Venice Film Festival 2017 red carpet welcomes grace and glamour
Premieres of ‘Downsizing’, ‘The Shape of Water’ and ‘First Reformed’ open the festival in style
The 74th Venice Film Festival is kicking off the autumn cinema season with searing drama, serious glamour and a crop of new movies vying for attention, awards and acclaim.
Thanks to its late-summer time slot, just ahead of rivals in Telluride and Toronto, the world’s oldest cinema festival has become a key showcase for films hoping to dominate Hollywood’s awards season. In recent years, Venice has been a launchpad for Oscar winners including Gravity, Birdman, Spotlight and La La Land.
This year’s edition opens with Alexander Payne’s Downsizing, a science fiction-tinged drama starring Matt Damon as a man who hopes to minimise his problems by shrinking himself.
Other films competing for the festival’s top prize, the Golden Lion, include the George Clooney-directed heist movie Suburbicon; Guillermo del Toro’s fantastical The Shape of Water; Darren Aronofsky’s secrecy-shrouded thriller Mother!; and Martin McDonagh’s dark comedy Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
Glamour galore
Unspooling in one of Italy’s most ravishing cities, the festival takes style and celebrity very seriously. Festival director Alberto Barbera says this year’s red-carpet roster is “the biggest list (of celebrities) we’ve had in years.”
Models Izabel Goulart and Isabeli Fontana, for instance, made a red carpet statement in matching looks from Alberta Ferretti at the premiere of The Shape of Water.
