Maestro, Ferrari, Priscilla... Despite the strike, the Venice Film Festival is full of Hollywood films

“The last few weeks have been very turbulent due to actors joining the scriptwriters' mobilization. Which took us by surprise. The impact of the actors' strike, which is very understandable, fortunately had a limited impact on the program for this edition," said Alberto Barbera on Tuesday afternoon. The artistic director of La Mostra de Venise was visibly relieved. Apart from the Challengers opening film by Luca Guadagnino, none of the big Hollywood productions expected on the Lido failed him.

The stars may be fewer on the red carpet, but the scale and prestige of the selection, which includes a good part of the films that will liven up the race for the Oscars, more than compensate for their absence.

In competition will thus be projected in world premiere the biopic Ferrari of Michael Mann with Adam Driver, Maestro the portrait that Bradley Cooper devotes to the composer Leonard Bernstein to which the hero of Very Bad Trip lends his features. David Fincher will thrill the crowds with The Killer, a thriller filmed in Paris with Michael Fassbender.

Priscilla by Sofia Coppola, who chronicles the romance of Elvis Presley and his underage wife, will also be eligible for the Golden Lion. Yorgos Lantimos' horror satire Poor Creatures, starring Emma Stone and Willem Defoe, Michel Franco's New York intrigue Memory, starring Jessica Chastain and Peter Sarsgaard, the adaptation of the Pullitzer Prize-winning novel Origin, a drama in which Ava DuVernay examines the American class system starring Aunjanue Ellis (King Richard), Niecy Nash (Dahmer), Jon Bernthal (The Punisher) and Vera Farmiga (Up in the Air)

“Of course, actors from studio and streaming platform works cannot be present, but I hope that we can count on actors from independent productions which also have big names,” underlines Alberto Barbera. Smaller European films and productions include Mads Mikkelsen (in the costume epic The Promised Land), Liam Neeson, Kerry Condon (In The Land Of Saints And Sinners), Top Gun Maverick revelation Glen Powell (Hit Man), Ron Pelman (Day Of The Fight), Lily James and Joe Kerry (Finalmente L'alba).

Out of competition, the prolific Wes Anderson, just back from Cannes, will unveil a second film this year, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, a series of stories inspired by the world of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It will feature the cream of British cinema: Benedict Cumberbatch, Rupert Friend, Dev Patel and Ralph Fiennes.

The Mostra does not flee the controversy by inviting on its screens three controversial filmmakers, accused of sexual assault (allegations denied by the defendants). Woody Allen will present his romantic thriller Coup de chance, shot in France with Lou de Laage, Valerie Lemercier, Melvil Poupaud and Niels Schneider, out of competition. Roman Polanski will unveil his Palace, the story of a corrosive transition to the year 2000 with Fanny Ardant. Luc Besson will be in competition with Dogman, a portrait of an unloved young boy who finds comfort and redemption with dogs with the revelation of Nitram, the Australian actor awarded at Cannes, Caleb Landry Jones.

All sections combined, the seventh French art will be omnipresent. Guillaume Canet, Lea Seydoux, Roschdy Zem will be able to stop in the Serenissima. The Mostra has invited feature films by Stéphane Brizé, Quentin Dupieux, Vincent Bonnello, Cédric Kahn and Alix Delaporte.

Rather than presenting his series at the La Rochelle Fiction Festival, Xavier Giannoli and Frederic Planchon will show in Venice the ten episodes of their event series for Canal, D'argent et de sang, which looks back on the carbon quota scams that cost the French state 300 million euros. In the credits, Vincent Lindon, Ramzy Bedia, Olga Kurylenko and Niels Schneider.