VENICE, Italy — A slate of buzzy premieres is rolling out Tuesday at the Venice Film Festival, highlighted by Alex Gibney’s deep-dive on Elon Musk, a marital-psychological thriller pairing Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem, and a new drama directed by Casey Affleck.
Venice Film Festival spotlights Gibney’s Musk
Running nearly four hours with an intermission, “Musk” profiles the world’s richest man and probes the breadth of his influence. Gibney, an Academy Award winner known for interrogating powerful figures and institutions, said he initially approached the subject as an admirer and hoped for a sit-down interview.
“Ultimately he didn’t want to talk to me,” Gibney said. “Then you start digging into the facts and you follow them where they lead,” adding that the reporting challenged the idea of Musk as a modern Leonardo da Vinci. The documentary is slated to open in North American theaters in October.
Cruz and Bardem reunite in Zeller’s “Bunker”
Real-life partners Cruz and Bardem bring star wattage with the premiere of “Bunker,” directed by Florian Zeller. The story follows an architect who agrees to construct a survivalist shelter for a billionaire, a choice that strains his marriage. Zeller said he wrote the film specifically for the duo, who have shared the screen since “Jamón Jamón.”
“‘Bunker’ touches on contemporary themes — fear of the future, ecological threats, rising social inequality, and individualism — but through a personal lens: a couple in conflict,” Zeller noted in a director’s statement. He said he aimed to explore love, fidelity, and forgiveness while keeping viewers in deliberate ambiguity. Stephen Graham, Paul Dano, and Patrick Schwarzenegger co-star. Searchlight Pictures plans a theatrical release early next year.
The film screens in competition alongside titles including “Wild Horse Nine” and “Ink,” and is seen as a potential awards contender with an expected qualifying run in 2026. Zeller’s “The Father” earned Anthony Hopkins a best actor Oscar and a screenplay win for Zeller.
Casey Affleck premieres “Company”
Also debuting is “Company,” a meditation on grief and compassion that Affleck directed and co-wrote. Seeking distribution, the film is set in winter 1975, when a mysterious woman disrupts a holiday gathering and the narrative opens into another story centered on a moral debate.
“I spent a lot of my life looking over the ledger, keeping score, frustrated by the debt of kindness,” Affleck said in a director’s statement. “Somewhere along the way I began to realize that the ledger is never balanced by the world. It’s balanced by what you contribute.”
Competing for the Golden Lion, “Company” stars Nick Nolte and Ben Mendelsohn and features Affleck’s children Atticus Affleck and Indiana Affleck.
Winners selected by a jury led by Maggie Gyllenhaal will be announced Saturday.
