Another film will open the Venice Film Festival in place of Challengers with Zendaya

Comandante, by Edoardo De Angelis, with Pierfrancesco Favino, replaces Luca Guadagnino’s romance.

An Italian filmmaker succeeds another at the opening of Venice Film Festival 2023. At the beginning of the summer, we learned that Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name) would have the honor of starting the festivities of this 80th edition thanks to Challengersa tennis romance worn by Zendaya (Malcolm and Mary, Spider-Man: No Way Home…), Josh O’Connor (the young Charles of The Crown) and Mike Faist (West Side Story). But this project shot in English whose sexy trailer made a lot of noise will not ultimately be the opening film of the next Venice festival on August 30…

The organizers reveal that it is finally Commanderby Edoardo De Angelis (Mozzarella Stories, Maradona: Le Reve Beni…), who was chosen to replace him. Worn by Pierfrancesco Favino, the excellent actor from Traitor, he was already part of the competition. Here is his pitch: Commander will tell the true story of Commander Salvatore Todaro, who saved the lives of enemy sailors who had survived the sinking of their merchant ship.

Amazon, which produces Challengersdid not give an official reason for removing him from the selection of the 80th Venice Film Festival, a festival to which the director is attached, since he received the Silver Lion there for Bones and All, recently. It is rumored, however, that this decision would have been made because of the writers’ and actors’ strike which is in full swing in Hollywood. It prevents actors from participating in the promotion of their films: if this continues until the end of the summer, this means that Zendaya and her colleagues will not be able to attend the red carpet, nor participate in the traditional press conference to defend the film…

Remember that few Italian films have opened the Venice Film Festival recently. Director Daniele Luchetti has been an exception over the past decade thanks to Lacichosen in 2020. Around him, there are mainly English-speaking authors: Damien Chazelle for La La Land (2016) and first-man (2018), Alexander Payne for Downsizing (2017) and Noah Baumbach for White Noise (2022). Latino directors are also popular, from Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity in 2013) to Pedro Almodovar (Madres Paralelasin 2021) via Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu for birdmanin 2014. The Icelandic Baltasar Kormakur also unveiled in Everest opening in 2015, and the Japanese Hirokazu Kore-eda showed him The truthin 2019.

The 80th Venice Film Festival will take place from August 30 to September 9, 2023.

The Venice Film Festival is preparing for an edition without Hollywood stars