From Nathan Fielder’s Buzzy Elizabeth Holmes Doc to Robert Pattinson’s Divisive ‘Primetime’: Venice and Telluride’s Winners and Losers

Two fall film festivals down, an infinite number to go. While Toronto and New York are the most prestigious North American festivals to follow Venice and Telluride in the fall, plenty of other regional film fetes, from Middleburg to Savannah and Mill Valley, also serve up the year’s best movies. But the films premiering in Italy and Colorado add to the roadmap Cannes already started drafting in May for how the season will play out en route to the Oscars. “Screen Talk” co-hosts Anne Thompson and Ryan Lattanzio finally have the chance to huddle after wrapping up Telluride and Venice, respectively, in the IndieWire podcast’s latest episode. Ryan breaks down the best- and worst-received movies from Venice, while Anne paints a picture of what went down in the Rockies, where resplendent first reactions filled the mountain air. Be wary of first reactions. Cannes movies that struck a chord with Telluride audiences included Jordan Firstman’s “Club Kid” and Los Javis’ “La Bola Negra,” two movies with a strong shot at Oscar nominations in 2027. Venice yielded fewer awards contenders, to be sure. But films like Lee Chang-dong‘s elegantly slippery relationship drama “Possible Love,” and “NAZA,” the new Gaza documentary from “No Other Land” Oscar winners Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, made huge waves on the Lido. “NAZA” is also the only documentary in the Venice competition; it will win a significant prize on Saturday. Speaking of nonfiction, we also dive into Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s latest climbing doc, “Everest: The Other Side,” and debate over its moral trickiness in portraying an obsessive climber staring down death again and again. Also in the running for a Venice win is May el-Toukhy’s disturbing, superbly directed post-World War II drama about women in Denmark amid the Danish resistance against Nazis, “Woman Unknown.” Other than Szor, el-Toukhy is the only female director in the competition. Maggie Gyllenhaal heads up the jury and will want to honor her achievement regardless of gender-parity issues plaguing the festival this year. But how can they not play a factor? El-Toukhy’s film tackles similar social issues as Cristian Mungiu’s Palme d’Or winner “Fjord,” which hit Telluride after Cannes to mixed results. When a society becomes so obsessed with trying to prevent evil, doesn’t that then become its own sort of authoritarianism? “Fjord” next plays TIFF and NYFF before Neon releases Mungiu’s first English-language film — one that has already stirred up political debate as to its allegiances between a devoutly religious Romanian couple and their uber-woke Norwegian neighbors — on October 9. The certainty of Venice competition entry “Bunker,” in which Florian Zeller directs real-life spouses Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz as an unraveling and very wealthy couple, as an Oscar hopeful is now in question after tepid reviews. Still, French playwright-turned-filmmaker Zeller’s third screen effort after Oscar-winner “The Father” and poorly reviewed “The Son” stirred up one of the festival’s most enthusiastic audience responses. There’s always one or two splits between critics and moviegoers at these things. ‘Tender Loving Care’Bleecker Street Anne and Ryan both adored Mike Leigh’s family drama “Tender Loving Care,” potentially the 83-year-old British director’s final film, for differing reasons. It’s about people coming together (with an outstanding ensemble including Kate O’Flynn, Marion Bailey, Paul Jesson, and Alice Bailey Johnson) but also being driven apart by the forces and sands of time. With a narrative centered around caretakers who need each other, it’s both invigoratingly heartfelt and crushingly dark. One of the best movies of the fall season, for sure, and perhaps closer in spirit to Leigh’s “Another Year” than last year’s beautifully pained “Hard Truths,” which scored no Oscar nominations despite Marianne Jean-Baptiste’s all-time performance. We also discuss Lance Oppenheim’s two movies on the fall circuit: the divisive “To Catch a Predator” thriller out of Venice, “Primetime,” and the Elizabeth Holmes documentary “You Can See Everything” that surprise-premiered to ecstatic raves in Telluride, and which Oppenheim co-directed with Nathan Fielder. “Primetime” has had a smattering of mixed-to-great responses, whereas “You Can See Everything” was instantly heralded as one of the year’s best. But beware those Telluride reactions. Listen to this week’s “Screen Talk” episode below or on your preferred podcast platform.