The amount of American titles for festival boss Alberto Barbera to choose from is enormous. A riches of submissions that will likely, and unfairly, overshadow the more euro-centric Cannes. Barbera has a gifted problem in his hands. He usually picks 4-6 American films in competition every year. This year he has more than a dozen A-list filmmakers who want to bring their US films to competition. Theres also a quota of 4-5 Italian films in competition. Which complicates things further for Barbera when it comes to jamming in as many great American films as possible. Between the Italian and American films, that’s already half the competition. Barbera has already taken care of one film; Paul Schrader’s “The Master Gardener” will be screening out of competition due to the director being honoured with the Gold Lion Achievement in Excellence award. You would imagine Venice regulars like Lanthimos, Glazer, Baumbach, Aronofsky and Guadagnino will be a part of the festivities. We also have no idea if A24 has settled its beef with Venice. This could be a game changer as they have new films from Ari Aster, Darren Aronofsky and Joanna Hogg all ready for a fall launch. If you remember, Barbera was very frustrated that he couldn’t nab Kelly Reichardt’s “First Cow” in 2019 due to the dispute. I’ll be conservative and list 13 titles in my predictions that are no-brainers to compete for the Golden Lion this year: Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Poor Things”Noah Baumbach’s “White Noise”Darren Aronofsky’s “The Whale”Andrew Dominik’s “Blonde”Alejandro González Inarritu’s “Bardo”Jonathan Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest”Jafar Panahi’s “No Bears”Roman Polanski’s “The Palace”Hong Sang-soo’s UntitledRebecca Zlotowski’s “Les Enfants Des Autres”Christophe Honore’s “Le Monde d’Hier”Luca Guadagnino’s “Bones & All”Emmanuel Crialese’s “L’Immensita”Andrea Palaoro’s “Monica” Then there’s the high possibilities: Todd Field’s “TAR”Martin McDonagh’s “The Banshees of Inisherin”Florian Zeller’s “The Son”Sarah Polley’s “Women Talking”Ira Sachs’ “Passages”Wes Anderson’s “Asteroid City”Damien Chazelle’s “Babylon”Ari Aster’s “Disappointment Blvd”Joanna Hogg’s “The Eternal Daughter”Alice Diop’s “Saint Omer”Koji Fukada’s “Love Life”Amat Eacalante’s “The State of the Empire”Miguel Gomes’ “Savagery”Lisandro Alonso’s “Eureka”Fatih Akin’s “Rheingold”Helena Wittmann’s “Human Flowers of Flesh” Out of Competition Paul Schrader’s “The Master Gardener” Contribute Hire me

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