San Francisco Frontiers - Julia Roberts looks to 'stir it up' with cancel culture film at Venice

The "Pretty Woman" star was attending the city's festival for the first time in her career for "After the Hunt", a cancel-culture psychological drama from Italian director Luca Guadagnino.

Speaking at a press conference on Friday ahead of the premiere, Roberts said the film does not aim to answer questions, but provoke them.

"Everybody comes out with all these different feelings and emotions and points of views. You realise what you believe in strongly and what your convictions are, because we stir it all up for you," she told journalists.

Roberts plays a Yale University professor haunted by a secret from her past after a student accuses one of her colleagues of sexual assault.

Questions over truth and fiction, and whether characters are reliable narrators, course through the film by the director of "Bones and All".

Touching on Gen Z culture and the generational divide between students and professors, the Amazon-produced film has overtones of Todd Field's 2022 drama "Tar", which handed Cate Blanchett a best actress award at Venice.

"Not everything is supposed to make you comfortable," Roberts's character in the film tells the student who claims she was assaulted.

Roberts said the film did not advocate any one point of view.

"We are challenging people to have conversations and to be excited by that or to be infuriated by that, it’s up to you," she said.

"We are kind of losing the art of conversation in humanity right now and if making this movie does anything, getting everybody to talk to each other is the most exciting thing I feel we could accomplish."

Venice regular Guadagnino -- whose "Call Me By Your Name" from 2017 helped send Timothee Chalamet to stardom -- was in Venice's main competition last year with "Queer," an adaptation of the William Burroughs novel of the same name starring Daniel Craig.

- Offing the competition -

Also Friday on the festival's third day was the return to Venice after 20 years for Park Chan-wook, South Korea's master of black comedy, with his new feature, "No Other Choice".

It is one of 21 films in the main competition for Venice's top award, the Golden Lion.

Howls of laughter filled the theatre at an early press screening for the thriller-comedy, in which a loyal paper company employee with a devoted family gets laid off and then decides to kill off any potential rivals for a new job.

"I've got it all," says protagonist Man-su (played by Lee Byung-hun) at the movie's start -- before everything goes terribly wrong.

Three years ago, Park won a best director award at Cannes for "Decision to Leave", a critically acclaimed romantic thriller.

The veteran director was last in Venice in 2005 with "Lady Vengeance", part of a trilogy exploring the dark recesses of the human experience.

- Early contenders -

The two strongest early contenders for the Golden Lion include opening night feature "La Grazia" by Italy's Paolo Sorrentino about an Italian president grappling with indecision about euthanasia.

Thursday brought the return of Oscar winner Emma Stone in Yorgos Lanthimos's darkly satirical "Bugonia", about two conspiracy-obsessed misfits who kidnap a pharmaceutical company CEO.

Stone and Greek director Lanthimos, working together for a fifth production, are hoping to repeat their successful formula from 2023 when "Poor Things" nabbed Venice's top Golden Lion prize.

Variety called Bugonia "riveting", saying Lanthimos was "at the top of his visionary nihilistic game", while Time magazine said Stone could "do no wrong".

George Clooney's turn as an ageing Hollywood star struggling with his career choices in Netflix-produced "Jay Kelly" by Noah Baumbach drew less favourable reviews.

The Guardian called it "a dire, sentimental and self-indulgent film".

Another hotly awaited film, to be shown Sunday, is Olivier Assayas's "The Wizard of the Kremlin", in which British star Jude Law portrays Russian President Vladimir Putin during his ascent to power.

A film about the war in Gaza, "The Voice of Hind Rajab", by Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania, has attracted heavyweight Hollywood attention and will premiere next week.

The festival -- which has become a crucial launching pad for major international productions that have gone on to Oscar success -- runs until September 6.

F.Edwards--SFF