Venice Film Festival: Utopia and hope give way to brutal realities

At this year’s Venice Film Festival, the hopeful political utopias of the previous edition have given way to harsher realities. From the opening days, the program has focused on power, war and the influence of the media.

Last year, Paolo Sorrentino’s “La Grazia” captivated audiences with its portrait of a wise, fictional Italian president. It offered a beautiful political utopia. This year, that hope has disappeared from the screen. In Alexandre Smia’s “Jupiter,” shown in the Horizons section, the president is French and faces an impossible decision as the war in Ukraine continues and Russia threatens a nuclear attack.

France’s president is the only person authorized to launch the country’s nuclear weapons, forcing the film to ask how France, Europe, NATO and the wider world should respond. “When I began writing the screenplay for ‘Jupiter,’ it was meant to be a dystopian film. Today, there is no longer any question of dystopia. The threat of nuclear war is terrifyingly real,” Smia said.

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When I began writing the screenplay for ‘Jupiter,’ it was meant to be a dystopian film. Today, there is no longer any question of dystopia. The threat of nuclear war is terrifyingly real.

The festival is also examining the media’s role. Danny Boyle opened the event with “Ink,” a film about Rupert Murdoch’s 1969 purchase of The Sun and his partnership with editor Larry Lamb. At the time, The Sun sold 600,000 copies and was declining, while the Daily Mirror sold 2.5 million. Murdoch and Lamb created a paper built around celebrity gossip, sport, crime and photographs of topless women. The newspaper soon became Britain’s best-selling title, marking the beginning of the tabloid era.

Boyle argues that the meeting between Murdoch and Lamb had a greater effect on the world than any other event of 1969, including the Moon landing. His film uses rapid editing, unusual camera angles and brief recollections to portray the paper’s pursuit of circulation, as sales rise to five million and ethical restraints fall away.

Media also anchors “Primetime,” the first narrative feature by 30-year-old documentarian Lance Oppenheim. Based on real events, it revisits journalist Chris Hansen’s “To Catch a Predator,” a television sting operation from the mid-2000s. The festival’s second week remained uncertain, but its opening films had already made Venice 2026 a pointed examination of politics and media.

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The meeting between Murdoch and Lamb had a greater effect on our world than any other event of 1969, including the Moon landing.