There is a moment, every year around the end of August, when the Lido stops being an island of beach umbrellas and becomes something else entirely. The barriers go up along Lungomare Marconi. The scaffolding for the press pen appears in front of the Palazzo del Cinema. And the vaporetti start arriving with people carrying equipment cases instead of towels.
The 83rd Venice International Film Festival runs from 2 to 12 September 2026. I will be there for all eleven days, accredited, as I have been for the previous editions.
This year the line-up gives me more to think about than usual.
It actually begins the night before. On Tuesday 1 September, in Sala Darsena, a pre-opening ceremony precedes the Venice Classics screening of COL CUORE IN GOLA by Tinto Brass, restored from 1967.
Then, on Wednesday 2 September at 19:00 in the Sala Grande, the opening ceremony, the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement to George Clooney, and the world premiere of Danny Boyle’s INK — 116 minutes, with Jack O’Connell, Guy Pearce and Claire Foy. Opening night is the single most compressed evening of the entire festival: the carpet is longer, the delegation is larger, and the light has usually gone by the time the principals arrive. You do not improvise that. You scout it.
The same day, Orizzonti opens with Alina Marazzi’s LA RAGAZZA CON LA LEICA, and Venezia Spotlight with Erik Shirai’s SUMO: SPIRIT WEIGHS NOTHING.
The Venezia 83 Competition holds twenty titles, and it is unusually loaded.
Werner Herzog directs Kate Mara and Rooney Mara in BUCKING FASTARD, with Orlando Bloom and Domhnall Gleeson — a sentence I had to read twice. It screens in the Sala Grande on Thursday 3 September, followed two hours later by Martin McDonagh’s WILD HORSE NINE, which puts John Malkovich, Sam Rockwell, Steve Buscemi, Tom Waits and Parker Posey on the same carpet on the same evening. Florian Zeller’s BUNKER does something similar with Penélope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Stephen Graham, Paul Dano and Patrick Schwarzenegger. From the press pen, an arrival like that is a logistical problem disguised as a gift.
The Italians are out in force. Nanni Moretti returns with SUCCEDERÀ QUESTA NOTTE, alongside Louis Garrel and Jasmine Trinca. Marco Bechis presents RITORNO A BUENOS AIRES with Adriano Giannini. Edoardo De Angelis brings IL FUOCO CHE TI PORTI DENTRO (THE FIRE WITHIN YOU) with Vanessa Scalera and Lino Musella. Paolo Strippoli’s L’ESTRANEA puts Trinca and Giannini together again, with Valeria Bruni Tedeschi. Andrea Pallaoro’s THE ECHO CHAMBER pairs Luca Marinelli with Alicia Vikander and Susan Sarandon.
From Asia, Hirokazu Koreeda with LOOK BACK, Lee Chang-dong with GA-NEUNG-HAN SA-RANG (POSSIBLE LOVE) — 164 minutes, Jeon Do-yeon and Sul Kyung-gu — and Shinya Tsukamoto with NELSON SAN, ANATA HA HITO WO KOROSHIMASHITAKA? (MR. NELSON, DID YOU KILL PEOPLE?), which brings Geoffrey Rush to the Lido. France sends Stéphane Brizé’s UN BON PETIT SOLDAT with Vincent Lindon and Alba Rohrwacher, Cédric Kahn’s 15/18 (A PLACE TO HEAL), and Nicolas Pariser’s UN PEU AVANT MINUIT with Melvil Poupaud, Chiara Mastroianni, Golshifteh Farahani and Anaïs Demoustier.
Completing the Competition: Casey Affleck’s COMPANY with Nick Nolte and Ben Mendelsohn, Ali Asgari’s KAMI NOUR (A BIT OF LIGHT), May el-Toukhy’s KVINDE UKENDT (WOMAN UNKNOWN), Lance Oppenheim’s PRIMETIME with Robert Pattinson and Merritt Wever, and Ilya Khrzhanovsky’s DAU — 195 minutes, which will empty the Sala Grande onto the carpet at an hour no publicist enjoys.
Then there is Venice Open, the Out of Competition strand, and this is where the festival gets loud.
The fiction slate includes Gianni Amelio’s NESSUN DOLORE with Alessandro Borghi, Valeria Golino and Valerio Mastandrea, screening in the Sala Grande late on 3 September; Mario Martone’s SCHERZETTO with Toni Servillo; Kornél Mundruczó’s PLACE TO BE with Ellen Burstyn, Taika Waititi and Pamela Anderson; Paul Schrader’s THE BASICS OF PHILOSOPHY; Lav Diaz’s MAKIKIRAAN PO (LET US THROUGH, DEAR ANCESTORS); Barthélémy Grossmann’s FATHER JOE with Kiefer Sutherland and Al Pacino; Sabu’s ARRESTED MEMORY; Tristan Seguela’s UN BON AVOCAT with Mélanie Laurent and Carole Bouquet; Alexandre Smia’s JUPITER with Denis Ménochet, André Dussollier and Reda Kateb; and Halkawt Mustafa’s NO PARADISE IF YOU ARE KILLED BY A WOMAN.
The non-fiction selection is, if anything, more demanding on a photographer’s schedule, because documentary delegations often arrive for a single day and leave the same night. Alex Gibney’s MUSK runs 232 minutes. Sergei Loznitsa brings IMPERIUM. Wim Wenders presents FROM INSIDE OUT – THE ARCHITECTURE OF PETER ZUMTHOR. Russell Crowe directs WHAT LOVE BUILDS. Alongside them: Amos Gitai’s THE ROAD TO JERICHO, Barbara Kopple’s UNION TOWN, Victor Kossakovsky’s HOLY WOOD DUST, Tsai Ming-liang’s WEICHEN (DUST) with Lee Kang-sheng, Miike Takashi’s SHUMEI: THE LIVING LEGACY OF KABUKI, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s EVEREST: THE OTHER SIDE, Luke Lorentzen’s BOATBUILDERS, Julia Loktev’s MY UNDESIRABLE FRIENDS: PART II – EXILE (355 minutes), Mariano Llinás’s BIOGRAFÍA DE JORGE LUIS BORGES (330), Andrei Kutsila’s LISTY (LETTERS), Ahmed Hassouna’s AL MOWATEN OSAMA (CITIZEN OSAMA), Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw’s BURGUNDY, Francesco Carrozzini’s BE BRAVE with Renzo Rosso, Theo Rollason’s QUEER EDWARD II, and Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace’s OASIS: DON’T LOOK BACK IN ANGER.
Add the Film on Films strand — Luca Guadagnino’s 435-minute JOIE DE VIVRE, Sophie Fiennes’ THE PERVERT’S GUIDE TO UTOPIAS, Walter Fasano’s NINO – UN FILM SU NINO ROTA, Yonfan’s INTERMISSION, Karen Di Porto’s JUSO PER FERIE, Yves Montmayeur’s TWIST & SHOOT MISTER SUZUKI — the short films by Maggie Gyllenhaal, Avi Mograbi and Laura Poitras, the series PECCATO by Valerio Vestoso, and the special screening of DAI NOSTRI INVIATI. LA RAI RACCONTA LA MOSTRA DEL CINEMA DI VENEZIA 2001-2012, and you have a schedule with almost no dead hours in it.
There are also the honours, which produce their own carpets and their own photocalls: the Golden Lions for Lifetime Achievement to George Clooney and Ellen Burstyn, the Cartier Glory to the Filmmaker award to Luca Guadagnino, the Campari Passion for Film award to Serena Rossi.
The festival closes on Saturday 12 September, in the Palazzo del Cinema and after the awards ceremony, with the world premiere of Giovanni Veronesi’s DIO RIDE, with Pierfrancesco Favino, Silvio Orlando, Alma Noce and Francesco Gheghi.
Now the part that producers and press offices ask me about every year, usually too late.
Accreditation at the Mostra is restricted. The number of photographers with access to the press pen on Lungomare Marconi and to the official photocalls is limited and fixed well before the festival opens. This has a practical consequence that surprises many international productions: a single photographer cannot cover both your institutional festival moments and your private events around Venice. It is not a question of budget or willingness. An accredited photographer is bound to the festival’s positions and timings; leaving the Lido for a dinner in Cannaregio means giving up the carpet.
So the model that actually works is a split one. I cover the institutional moments — photocall, red carpet, and the presentation of the film in the theatre — with accreditation and a fixed position. For dinners, parties, private screenings and meetings outside the festival, a second photographer, coordinated with me, delivers the rest of the day in one consistent visual language.
The other thing worth saying plainly: the images from those three institutional moments are the ones that travel. They go into press kits, trade coverage, distributor materials, and the pages of outlets in Rome, Paris, London, Los Angeles and Tokyo within hours. Which is why I deliver a first edited selection within one hour of the end of each event, and the complete gallery within 24 hours, in high-resolution JPG, with unlimited usage rights and photo credit.
Eleven days, more than a hundred titles, and one press pen.
If your film is in the Venezia 83 official selection — Competition or Venice Open — and you have not yet decided who is photographing your photocall and your red carpet, that decision has a deadline, and it is earlier than you think.
Would you like your film’s Venice 2026 red carpet and photocall photographed by an accredited photographer? Get in touch.