VENICE, Italy — VENICE, Italy (AP) — Venice Film Festival regular Luca Guadagnino is back at the Lido Tuesday night to debut his new Daniel Craig film “Queer.”
Guadagnino, a festival favorite, was forced to forego a splashy red carpet premiere for the sexy tennis drama “Challengers” last year when the studio postponed its release due to the actors’ strike. But the filmmaker returns with another highly anticipated project: the adaptation of a novel by William S. Burroughs about an American expat in Mexico City in 1950 who develops an obsession with a young male student.
“Challengers” screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes wrote the script for “Queer,” an adaptation of a novel written in the 1950s but not published until 1985. It’s a story that others have tried to adapt over the years, including Steve Buscemi and Oren Moverman.
“How can a man who sees and feels be anything but sad?” asks William Burroughs in the last entry of his personal diary before his death,” Guadagnino wrote in his director’s statement. “With the adaptation of his second novel, which was published almost forty years after his writing, we have tried to respond to this modest appeal of the great iconoclast of the Beat generation.”
Craig, in an appearance by Venice Film Festival director Alberto Barbera, named “career-defining” stars alongside Drew Starkey, Lesley Manville and Jason Schwartzman in the film, which is in the main competition. A24 also recently acquired “Queer” for theatrical distribution.
The 81st edition of the Venice Film Festival has entered its final week, with the premiere of “Joker: Folie à Deux” still to take place on Wednesday. There have been plenty of movie star moments, with the likes of Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Angelina Jolie, Nicole Kidman, Cate Blanchett, Julianne Moore, Tilda Swinton and Michael Keaton all having hit the red carpet outside the Sala Grande theatre. Although no clear favorite has emerged, the films have sparked robust debate and discussion: ‘Babygirl’s’ portrayal of sexuality and desire; the authenticity of “Maria” and Jolie’s performance; the merits of Almodóvar working in the English language; what we really want from a Pitt and Clooney reunion; and whether or not “Disclaimer,” Alfonso Cuarón’s seven-part Apple TV+ miniseries, which is not in the competition, could reasonably be considered the best film of the festival.
The prizes will be awarded on the last day of the festival, September 7.
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