The Toronto International Film Festival has been slowly revealing some of its world premiere titles over the past few weeks and now its Venetian festival cousin has gotten into the mix. Today, Noah Baumbach’s “White Noise” was revealed as the opening night film for the 2022 Venice Film Festival. Baumbach’s last Oscar-nominated feature, “Marriage Story,” debuted at the festival in 2019.
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In a statement, Venice Film Festival chief Alberto Barbera noted, “It is a great honor to open the 79. Venice Film Festival with ‘White Noise.’ It was worth waiting for the certainty that the film was finished to have the pleasure to make this announcement. Adapted from the great Don DeLillo novel, Baumbach has made an original, ambitious, and compelling piece of art which plays with measure on multiple registers: dramatic, ironic, satirical. The result is a film that examines our obsessions, doubts, and fears as captured in the 1980s,  yet with very clear references to contemporary reality.”
Baumbach added, “It is a truly wonderful thing to return to the Venice Film Festival, and an incredible honor to have ‘White Hoise’ play as the opening night film. This is a place that loves cinema so much, and it’s a thrill and a privilege to join the amazing films and filmmakers that have premiered here.”
Venice will announce its complete selection tomorrow, July 26th at 11 AM local time.
Based on DeLillo’s 1985 novel, “White Noise” stars Adam Driver, Greta Gerwig, Don Cheadle, Jodie Turner-Smith, Raffey Cassidy, Alessandro Nivola, and Andre 3000, among others. The official Venice synopsis reads: “At once hilarious and horrifying, lyrical and absurd, ordinary and apocalyptic, ‘White Noise’ dramatizes a contemporary American family’s attempts to deal with the mundane conflicts of everyday life while grappling with the universal mysteries of love, death, and the possibility of happiness in an uncertain world.” This is Baumbach’s fourth film with Driver after “While We’re Young,” “The Meyerowitz Stories” and “Marriage Story.”
With “White Noise” kicking off Venice it is expected, as in previous years, that the filmmakers will then jet to screen the picture at the Telluride Film Festival a few days later. TIFF and NYFF berths are likely a given.
Netflix has not provided a release date for “White Noise” at this time.
The 79th Venice Film Festival will run from Wed, August 31 – Saturday, September 10.