Amal Clooney and George Clooney at the 2024 Venice Film Festival.

A Look Back at the 2024 Venice Film Festival

BY JANET SUSAN R. NEPALES / PHOTOGRAPHY BY EARL GIBSON III

You wouldn’t even feel you were in Venice, Italy, with all of Hollywood’s A-listers on the red carpet at the 81st Venice Film Festival.

Some of the stars who arrived included the who’s who of Tinseltown, including Brad Pitt, George and Amal Clooney, Angelina Jolie, Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Kate Winslet, Sigourney Weaver, Tim Burton, Todd Phillips, Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara, Jenna Ortega, Justin Theroux, Willem Dafoe, Monica Bellucci, Tilda Swinton, Pedro Almodóvar, Julianne Moore, Richard Gere and Kevin Costner.

The festival honored Sigourney Weaver with the prestigious Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement award (also known as the “Leone d’Oro”). “My Leone will sit next to me on the airplane,” revealed Weaver, 74, who is known for her “Alien” and “Avatar” films. “He will sit next to me in the gondola, and my husband will have to get used to him lying in bed with us,” the two-time Golden Globe winner added.

When asked who inspired her as a young woman, Weaver said during the press conference at the Palazzo del Casinò, “I got to work with Ingrid Bergman. That was my first job, given to me by Sir John Gielgud. And we did a tour of a Somerset Maugham play. And I spent months with Miss Bergman. And every night, I was so obnoxious I’d knock on her door. I was the assistant stage manager and an understudy of her mistress. I’d knock on the door and go, ‘Miss Bergman, do you have any valuables?’ And she’d always laugh and say, ‘Oh, Sigourney, you know I give them to Ruth,’ her coach companion. She was so gracious to me. Sometimes, I wonder if I would have stayed in the business if I had worked with someone who wasn’t gracious and who didn’t constantly push herself. She broke her ankle at the beginning of the run and did the play in a wheelchair for six months. I thought she was most wonderful. So, she inspired me very much. Her range of work is just extraordinary. She’s just incredible.”

Opening the festival was no less than the Tim Burton-helmed movie, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” the sequel to his 1988 film. The 66-year-old director reunited with several key cast members from his original film, which included Michael Keaton (Beetlejuice), Catherine O’Hara (Delia Deetz) and Winona Ryder (Lydia Deetz), who’s now a mother to Astrid, portrayed by Jenna Ortega. Other cast members present included Willem Dafoe (Wolf Jackson), Justin Theroux (Rory) and Monica Bellucci (Delores), who held hands with Burton most of the time.

When asked why he thinks “Beetlejuice” is so special, the director-producer Burton replied, “It’s interesting because people asked about it, but the funny thing about ‘Beetlejuice,’ as much as I love it, I never quite understood why it was a success. So, I could never place it on anything except something personal. Then, after all these years, being able to work with Michael, Catherine and Winona again made it more personal and special. Then, with Jenna, Monica, Willem and Justin, people who got into the spirit of it and felt it. So, it was a very, very personal project for me.”

Keaton, 73, who plays Beetlejuice, remarked, “Beetlejuice is like a piece of art that you can also hang on a wall in a sense that it’s a world in itself.” He explained, “To say it’s unique, it’s an understatement, but it’s the most accurate statement. And there are so few opportunities to be in something that you can say is 100% original and unique. Because you can see a wonderful film, but it was inspired by something somewhere that someone had seen.”

Jenna Ortega, the talented 22-year-old actress of “Wednesday” who portrays Astrid in the Burton movie, was a vision in red as she walked the red carpet in a flowing custom Dior gown. Her top was made up of gauzy layers that fell into a heart shape down to her belly button.

She said of joining the original cast, “I was so thrilled and excited to join the movie. I was a huge fan of the first one and love everyone here. I looked up to a lot of this cast, and it was wonderful to have already established a working relationship with Tim because he’s somebody I trust immensely and enjoy working with. So, coming on to this one, knowing that I was joining a team of giants and people who are so special and talented at what they do, I just tried to mind my business in the corner.”

Another newbie in the film, Willem Dafoe, who portrays Wolf Jackson, revealed, “I was just happy when Tim called me. I followed his movies and his work for years, so I was excited by that, and then when I arrived, yes, it was a complete world. It’s a world you enter, and there’s a real pleasure in inventing things, as Tim says, and trying to make him laugh.”

Angelina Jolie, who was amazing in her portrayal of opera diva Maria Callas in the Pablo Larraín-directed fact-based drama “Maria,” wore a draped beige gown custom-made by Tamara Ralph, accentuated with a soft brown faux-fur wrap. And it did not matter if it was 90-degree weather in Lido because the stunning actress-director rocked it.

What was amazing about Jolie was that she stopped to greet a fan with a rare bone disorder and knelt on the red carpet beside her fan, lying down on a stretcher, to say hello.

We asked Jolie how much she related to her character, Maria Callas, and she disclosed, “Well, there’s a lot I won’t say in this room that you probably know or assume. How I related to her may be a surprise, but that part of her is probably extremely soft and doesn’t have room in the world to be as soft as she truly was and as emotionally open as she was. I share her vulnerability more than anything.”

Nicole Kidman, who portrayed one of her most daring roles ever in Halina Reijn’s erotic thriller “Babygirl” with Antonio Banderas and Harris Dickinson (“Triangle of Sadness”), was welcomed by screams of joy when she hit the red carpet with a couture creation by Daniel Roseberry for Schiaparelli that featured a corset bustier in nude organza.

It was bittersweet for Kidman, though. She could not attend the awards night because she learned her mother, Janelle Ann Kidman, had passed away. That night, she also won the Best Actress award for her raw and exposing portrayal of the CEO embroiled in an affair with an intern (Dickinson). Director Reijn received the award on her behalf.

Best friends George Clooney and Brad Pitt, both featured in the action comedy “Wolfs,” written and directed by Jon Watts, arrived at the Venice Film Festival with their love partners: Clooney with his wife Amal and Brad with his girlfriend, Ines de Ramon, vice president of Anita Ko jewelry. While Amal hit the red carpet with her hubby, Ines shied away and let Brad get all the limelight.

Watts missed the world premiere of his movie due to having COVID. Clooney told us, “He flew all the way here, and then he got COVID, and he’s now flown back. Which we’re all now going to get.”

Asked what made them accept the project and work together again, Pitt replied, “Jon came up with this idea, and it sounded really fun. We figured there must be a good reason to get back in a film together, something we feel we could build upon what we’ve done before. But also, I have to say, just as I get older, working with the people I enjoy spending time with has become important to me. But Jon came up with the idea of getting us together as cleaners (fixers) who think they’re the best. And we liked the idea, and he wrote this first draft, and we read it, and I said, great. And then George read it, and he said, great. And here we are. Now, it’s never happened where someone presents you with an idea, and you get a first draft of a script, and that’s what you end up shooting. Usually, there are years of development.”

Clooney added, “We’re both producers. We constantly get pitches, not even for us to be in or produce. When the first draft comes in, you’re always like, oh my God, what are we going to do with this? And this one came in, and right away, we thought, this is great. Also, Jon, I loved ‘Cop Car,’ and I think he’s a really interesting director. We wanted to crack at working with him, too. I thought that was fun.”

Of course, Lady Gaga was the queen of the red carpet at the festival. She wore a sleeveless black Christian Dior haute couture ball gown and a Philip Treacy headpiece that was truly a head-turner. For the first time, she arrived with her fiancé, Michael Polansky. It was the couple’s first public appearance together.

Joaquin Phoenix also arrived with his partner, actress Rooney Mara.

Attending the world premiere of their movie, “Joker: Folie a Deux,” both Phoenix and Gaga were brilliant in their roles as Joker and Harley Quinn, respectively.

Gaga told us about her experience working with Phoenix, “Working with Joaquin was a total breeze. I enjoyed it, and it was a completely different experience than anyone I’d ever had with an actor. He’s incredibly loose and free. I learned that going on set with a preconceived notion of what we would do was the wrong idea, and we all thrived in the moment and the chaos of it all. This is such an interesting story, the way that Todd (Phillips) tells this story. If you imagine what this movie is like and then see it, you’ll realize that you couldn’t have thought of it on your own. And to make that happen, we had to find it every day. What was the truth, the honest moment in each scene and how did it tell a story? When you see the film, we want you to decide what it means to you instead of deciding it for you.”

The surprise winner of the Golden Lion award was the first full-length English-language debut of Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar, “The Room Next Door,” which stars talented actresses Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton. The drama is based on the novel “What Are You Going Through” by Sigrid Nunez. The trio made a bold statement on the red carpet with a bright pink suit for Almodóvar, a chartreuse glittery gown for Moore and a pleated, gray chiffon Chanel coat for Swinton.

Making their presence felt at the Venice Film Festival as well were auteur Filipino filmmaker Lav Diaz and his cast for his four-hour movie “Phantosmia.” The only Filipino film in the Out-of-Competition category, the movie stars Janine Gutierrez, Ronnie Lazaro, Hazel Orencio, Paul Jake Paule and Dong Abay.

Gutierrez was excited as she looked like a princess in her baby blue gown on the red carpet. Lazaro was proudly wearing his one-of-a-kind José Rizal-inspired barong. Paule sported a handsome blue suit and looked very princely as he posed for the photographers. With his hat and trademark twisted beard, Abay was still pinching himself to ensure his dream of being at the Venice Film Festival had come true.

Most of them were first-timers at the oldest film festival in the world, and they couldn’t believe they were realizing their dreams of participating in it.

Orencio, who has worked with Diaz for the past 13 years, is the most veteran when attending international film festivals. Not only is she an actress in Phantosmia, but she’s also the film’s supervising producer.

Producer Paul Soriano and his lovely wife, Toni Gonzaga, joined the group on this trip. Soriano, also a first-timer in Venice, is credited with saving the film from being canceled after an actor and producer suddenly backed out during Christmas.

Diaz, who has received accolades from the Venice Film Festival in the past, including Special Mention in the Orizzonti category for his film “Kagadanan sa Banwaan ning mga Engkanto” in 2007, Best Film in the Orizzonti category for “Melancholia” in 2008, Gold Lion for Best Film for “Ang Babaeng Humayo” in 2016 and Best Director for “Lahi, Hayop” in the Orizzonti section in 2020, was so excited to bring his cast to the festival.