The 82nd Venice International Film Festival

The city of shimmering canals and whispered gondolier songs, where the bells of San Marco have tolled for centuries, suddenly moves to a different rhythm — the staccato of camera shutters, the flash of spotlights, the whisper of couture gowns skimming marble steps. On the quiet island of Lido di Venezia, where art deco façades meet the Adriatic breeze, the oldest film festival in the world unfurls its red carpet like a royal decree.

Yet beyond the champagne toasts and the glittering premieres, there is another Venice — one hidden from the spotlight. Behind closed doors, producers juggle impossible schedules, crews weave through labyrinthine alleys with cameras and cases, and editing suites glow until dawn. This is the Venice only insiders see — the beating heart that makes the magic possible.

It began, as many great stories do, with an idea whispered over dinner.

The year was 1932. Europe was still catching its breath between two world wars, and the future of cinema was as uncertain as it was thrilling. In a grand Venetian hotel overlooking the lagoon, Count Giuseppe Volpi di Misurata — a statesman with a flair for spectacle — proposed an audacious notion: Why not bring the world’s greatest films, and the people who make them, to Venice?

That August, under the open sky of the Hotel Excelsior’s terrace on the Lido, the first screenings flickered to life. There was no competition, no Golden Lion, no paparazzi vying for the perfect shot — just a gathering of artists, critics, and society’s curious elite. They watched Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, It Happened One Night, and A Farewell to Arms, seated in wicker chairs, their laughter and gasps carried away by the salt-tinged breeze.

By the turn of the millennium, the festival had reinvented itself once more — balancing the reverence of tradition with a hunger for the new. Independent voices shared the stage with Hollywood juggernauts; a Netflix premiere could spark the same fevered conversation as a Tarkovsky restoration. Through it all, the Venice Film Festival retained its rare alchemy: a meeting place where cinema is celebrated not just as an industry, but as a living, breathing art form.

To understand the magic of the Venice Film Festival, you must first know the Lido.
A narrow ribbon of land between the Venetian Lagoon and the Adriatic Sea, the Lido di Venezia is part seaside resort, part cinematic dreamscape. For most of the year, it hums quietly with the rhythms of local life — bicycles gliding past Liberty-style villas, fishermen tending their boats, the scent of espresso drifting from corner cafés.

But in late summer, the island transforms. Water taxis streak across the lagoon, carrying directors fresh off transatlantic flights. The faded grandeur of the Hotel Excelsior becomes a hub of whispered deals and impromptu interviews, its Moorish arches framing a parade of film’s most luminous faces. Along the tree-lined Gran Viale, festival banners flutter in the salt wind, announcing the arrival of cinema’s high season.

The geography of the Lido plays its own quiet role in the festival’s allure. A film might premiere to rapturous applause at the Palazzo, only for its cast and crew to slip away moments later onto a waiting motor launch, cutting through the moonlit water toward a hidden dinner on the Grand Canal. The city and the sea are constant co-stars, their beauty amplifying the spectacle of cinema.

For those who work behind the scenes — producers, publicists, cinematographers — the Lido is more than a location. It’s a crucible, where months of preparation meet the unpredictable chaos of live events. Here, every step from hotel to screening hall feels like part of a scene in a film still being written.

The Venice Film Festival is not a single event but a constellation of worlds, each with its own rhythm, audience, and ambitions. To wander through its programme is to navigate the many shapes cinema can take — from glittering Oscar hopefuls to experimental works that defy categorisation.

Together, these sections form the festival’s unique identity — honouring tradition while embracing innovation, and proving that Venice is as much about the future of storytelling as it is about its illustrious past.

For filmmakers, the red carpet of the Lido leads not only to the premiere hall, but to the possibility of history. The Venice Film Festival’s awards are not just trophies — they are anointment, capable of transforming an independent feature into an international sensation, or vaulting a director from cult acclaim to the centre of global conversation.

Venice has a gift for timing. Positioned at the threshold of autumn, the festival often serves as the spark that ignites the awards season — and its premieres have a way of echoing far beyond the Sala Grande.

It was here that Guillermo del Toro unveiled The Shape of Water, a modern fairy tale that would glide from the Lido’s waters to Oscar gold. Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma found its global audience after a rapturous reception in Venice, shattering preconceptions about streaming releases in the process. Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere, Todd Phillips’ Joker, and Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite each left the festival with fresh laurels and a sharpened trajectory toward cultural immortality.

Each evening on the Lido, as the Adriatic light fades to gold, a different kind of premiere begins. The long, crimson strip leading into the Palazzo del Cinema is more than an entrance — it’s a stage where cinema meets couture, and where style moments are broadcast to the world in real time.

For those working behind the scenes — stylists, publicists, photographers — the carpet is as choreographed as any premiere. Every step, every turn toward the cameras is a calculated gesture, a collaboration between fashion houses and the stories unfolding inside the screening hall. Here, before a single frame is shown, cinema is already happening.

For every ovation in the Sala Grande, there is an invisible network of people making sure the moment happens at all. Beneath the glitter of premieres and the elegance of the Lido lies a choreography as complex as any film production — one that begins months before the first guest steps onto a water taxi.

Venice in September is a logistical puzzle. Equipment must be ferried across canals, screening schedules recalibrated when a print arrives late from customs, and talent moved from hotels to the red carpet with a precision worthy of a military operation. Crews work through the night to rig lights for press calls, test sound systems, and prepare interview spaces where a single quote can shape a film’s entire publicity arc.

This is also where companies like ORBIS Production - Photo and Film Production Company in Venice thrive — in the controlled chaos of live events and international premieres. With crews fluent in both cinematic craft and event precision, they move quietly between the glamour and the grind, capturing behind-the-scenes footage, orchestrating interviews, and ensuring that the magic of Venice is preserved long after the closing credits. Their lens catches not only the finished spectacle, but the heartbeat of the festival: the rehearsals, the last-minute dress fittings, the quiet moments when a director takes a breath before stepping into the spotlight.

It’s a side of the Venice Film Festival that the public rarely sees, but without it, there would be no headlines, no viral fashion moments, no history-making premieres — only empty chairs in a darkened hall.

From August 27 to September 6, 2025, the Lido di Venezia will once again transform into the epicentre of world cinema, as the 82nd Venice International Film Festival rolls out its crimson carpet over the Adriatic breeze. For eleven days, this slender island — normally a quiet blend of beaches, Liberty-style villas, and local cafés — will hum with the energy of global premieres, midnight screenings, yacht-side interviews, and fashion moments that will dominate September’s magazine covers.

This year’s programme promises a collision of heavyweights and rising stars. Paolo Sorrentino opens the festival with La grazia, a lush Italian drama starring Toni Servillo — a love letter to both Naples and the craft of performance. The competition line-up is stacked with cinematic pedigree: Jim Jarmusch’s Father Mother Sister Brother (Cate Blanchett, Adam Driver), Yorgos Lanthimos’s sci-fi fable Bugonia (Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons), Luca Guadagnino’s psychological thriller After the Hunt (Julia Roberts, Andrew Garfield), and Guillermo del Toro’s long-anticipated Frankenstein. Across the Sala Grande, Noah Baumbach, Kathryn Bigelow, Benny Safdie, and François Ozon will unveil works that could set the tone for awards season.

The festival will also pause to honour cinematic legends. Werner Herzog and Kim Novak will each receive the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement, while Julian Schnabel will be awarded the Cartier Glory to the Filmmaker prize — a reminder that Venice’s gaze is fixed not only on the present, but on the artists who have shaped cinema’s past.

Venice has always been a place where cinema becomes more than projection and applause — it’s an atmosphere, a statement, a living archive of art and spectacle. And in 2025, with one of its most ambitious line-ups in years, Venezia 82 promises to be a chapter worth remembering.

The 82nd Venice International Film Festival will run from Wednesday, August 27 to Saturday, September 6, 2025, transforming the Lido di Venezia into the beating heart of global cinema. Whether you’re chasing premieres, networking with industry leaders, or simply soaking in the glamour, this is your definitive guide to navigating Venice’s most cinematic fortnight.

While the headlines belong to the premieres and the red carpet, the Venice Film Festival is also a live, evolving production in its own right. Beyond the screenings, every corner of the Lido becomes a set — and every moment an opportunity to create content that will travel the world.

Then there’s the world backstage rarely seen by the public — the getting ready sequences in hotel suites as stylists and makeup artists prepare talent for the carpet, the one-on-one interviews on sunlit terraces, and the exclusive photo calls set against the lagoon.

These moments tell a story just as vital as the premieres themselves, and in today’s media landscape, they’re often the most shareable and enduring — especially when captured by a leading photo production company in Venice.