Director Noah Baumbach's adaptation of Don DeLillo's 1985 novel "White Noise" has been selected to open the Venice International Film Festival in August, festival director Alberto Barbera said Monday.
Baumbach wrote and directed the film, which looks at the contemporary American family through the lens of a professor, Jack Gladney, and his fourth wife, Babette. Greta Gerwig, who has a child with Baumbach, stars alongside Adam Driver, Don Cheadle, Raffey Cassidy and Jodie Turner-Smith.
"It is a great honor to open the 79th Venice Film Festival with 'White Noise,'" Barbera said. "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."
The Netflix-produced film will be among those competing for the Golden Lion award, selected by a jury led by Julianne Moore, and a likely player in the awards season to come. It'll screen for festival goers at the Sala Grande at the Palazzo del Cinema on Aug. 31 on the Lido.
Baumbach previously debuted his film "Marriage Story" at the festival in 2019. It would go on to pick up six Oscar nominations, including best picture, and one win for Laura Dern.
"It is a truly wonderful thing to return to the Venice Film Festival, and an incredible honor to have 'White Noise' play as the opening night film," Baumbach said. "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."
The rest of the slate for the 79th Venice International Film Festival will be revealed this week. The festival runs from Aug. 31 through Sept. 10.
Lindsey Bahr is an AP film writer
