FALL FESTIVAL PREVIEW 2025 – Christina Jeurling Birro reports
Bigelow’s back, Zhao tackles Shakespeare, and More as the fall film festivals unveil their lineups.
Fall festival season kicks off on the Lido in Venice in less than a month, then rolls on from the mountains of Telluride to Toronto, and beyond. This year promises a strong showing from female directors across many lineups. Here are just a few of the exciting films to keep your eyes on!
VENICE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
At the 82nd Venice International Film Festival, six of the 21 films in the Official Competition are directed by women.
Mona Fastvold returns to Venice after last year’s The Brutalist, which she co-wrote with her partner, Brady Corbet. Her latest work, The Testament of Ann Lee, is a historical musical drama she co-wrote and directed, centering on the life of religious Shakers founder Ann Lee. The film stars Amanda Seyfried, Thomasin McKenzie, and Lewis Pullman.
Kathryn Bigelow, the Oscar-winning director of The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, is back with A House of Dynamite, a political thriller starring Idris Elba and Rebecca Ferguson. A brief synopsis has been released: when a missile is launched at the U.S., the race is on to determine who is responsible — and how the White House should respond.
There is a great deal of anticipation for director Kaouther Ben Hania’s new film, The Voice of Hind Rajab — based on the true story of a six-year-old Palestinian girl trapped under fire — which incorporates real Red Crescent emergency call recordings. Ben Hania is a two-time Oscar nominee (The Man Who Sold His Skin, Four Daughters).
Other competition highlights: Valérie Donzelli’s À pied d’œuvre (At Work), Ildikó Enyedi’s Silent Friend, and Shu Qi’s debut Girl (Nühai).
Venice will also see several exciting documentaries by female directors. Laura Poitras, who won the coveted Golden Lion in 2022 with All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, returns with the documentary Cover-Up on investigative journalist Seymour Hersh.
Sofia Coppola presents Marc by Sofia, a portrait of her frequent collaborator and friend Marc Jacobs. And Broken English, a hybrid documentary on icon Marianne Faithfull starring Tilda Swinton (by Jane Pollard and Iain Forsyth), is already generating major buzz.
TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) explodes on the scene just a few weeks later, September 4–14. In Toronto, we see several filmmakers taking on elusive and towering literary figures — like Shakespeare and Kafka — as well as reimagining classic plays.
Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet, a fictionalized historical drama, centers on Agnes Shakespeare and her husband William as they confront the death of their 11-year-old son. Starring Jessie Buckley as Agnes Shakespeare and Paul Mescal as William Shakespeare.
Agnieszka Holland — the legendary Polish filmmaker — returns with Franz, co-written with Marek Epstein. The film chronicles the life of Franz Kafka, from his youth in Prague to his death in 1924.
And Nia DaCosta’s Hedda, an adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s play, stars Tessa Thompson as the complex and tragic Hedda Gabler.
Two exciting directorial debuts by actors will also show at TIFF. Scarlett Johansson’s Eleanor the Great marks her first time behind the camera, and the film stars June Squibb. And Maude Apatow makes her feature directing debut with Poetic License, a coming-of-age comedy starring Cooper Hoffman, her real-life mother Leslie Mann, and herself.
And that’s just a few of the exciting films — the season’s only getting started. We’ll have much more to cover as the fall festivals unfold!
