The Venice Film Festival’s 2024 lineup is one of the most star-studded we’ve seen for a fall festival in quite some time. Lady Gaga (Joker: Folie à Deux), George Clooney and Brad Pitt (Wolfs), Nicole Kidman (Babygirl), Angelina Jolie (Maria), Julianne Moore (The Room Next Door), and Cate Blanchett (Disclaimer) are all scheduled to walk the carpet on the Lido during the event, which runs August 28 to September 7.

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Artistic director Alberto Barbera is the man responsible for making the 2024 Venice Film Festival every studio’s most desired Oscar launching pad. When he took on the role in 2012 (he had previously held the same position from 1998 to 2001), Venice did not have the same level of prestige that it does today, as Barbera tells Vanity Fair. But in just a few short years, he’s helped build the fest into the glamorous getaway it’s become, where dozens of films have begun their journeys to the Oscars over the past few years.

Ahead of the festival kick-off this year, Barbera spoke with Vanity Fair about what it took to get Venice on track, the rivalry between festivals, and how they’ll deal with the Brangelina of it all at this year’s event.

Vanity Fair: There’s often rumblings about the competition between the fall festivals – Venice, Telluride, and Toronto – to secure the biggest world premieres. Do you think this issue is getting worse or better?

Alberto Barbera: It was worse years before. In 2012, most of the American films preferred to go to Toronto instead of coming to Venice, because Venice, of course, is more expensive. Toronto, it's a lot cheaper and easier for them. In most cases, that was the option for the big studios. So it was not easy to convince all of them to come back to Venice. There were no studios' films in Venice in 2012.

The following year, we opened the festival with Gravity. That won the Oscar, and that was the beginning of a change in the relationship with the studios. After that, every year we had one or more than one films that went to the Oscars, then won the Oscars—like Birdman, Spotlight, La La Land, Shape of Water, Joker. So of course now it's easy to get a film, because the studios and the Americans understood that they can use the platform of Venice to launch the film internationally, and to start a campaign for the Oscars, with all the press that we have in Venice. There is almost no press in Toronto, apart from the trades. We have something like 3,000 media representatives from all over the world, so they can really make a proper promotion with the film, the marketing of the film, starting from Venice.

How much are you considering the balance between commercial films and potential Oscar films in your lineup?

I don't like the idea to invite a commercial film if the film doesn't have, how can I say, a personal approach to the content. It has to be oriented with some specific interest from the point of view of the filmmaker, and production-wise. There are so many films that I prefer to give the chance to a more personal film to be selected, instead of just a commercial one.

Every year, there are headline-grabbing moments in Venice like Lady Gaga on a boat. Do you have a favorite moment like that from the last couple of years?

Well, you mentioned Lady Gaga. I think that is a perfect example of a very special moment. Do you remember the red carpet of A Star Is Born? It was magic, because she was on the red carpet with this beautiful white dress with feathers and so on, and then it started to rain, but she didn't want to leave the red carpet. She stayed on the red carpet taking photos, signing autographs and so on. And then she was completely wet. So she came to my office, trying to dry herself and gown. And Bradley Cooper was outside with me, discussing the film and the expectation around the film. And then she came out of the office, and she was trembling, and he said, "Oh, I don't understand why. You should be used to this, being in concerts with hundreds of thousands of people waiting for you."

She told me, "Yeah, of course, but this is my first time in a film." So she was shaking, but then of course the response of the critics and the audience to the film was so fantastic. It was a beautiful evening for everybody.

She’ll be back with Joker: Folie À Deux this year. The first film was a bit polarizing when it premiered at Venice. Do you anticipate the sequel to get a similar reaction?

Yes, I think so. If you expect just a second part of the previous one, exactly the same kind of narrative and situation and so on, you are wrong, because the theme is much darker. It is much more inventive from every point of view. It's completely unexpected. I think it is very bold, and brave, and creative, and an incredibly original film.

You also spoke very highly of Queer, directed by Luca Guadagnino and starring Daniel Craig. Why do you think that film doesn’t have a distributor yet?

It's not an easy film. It's very bold, again. I don't know if you are familiar with the book or not. It's a short novel that was published only in 1985, right after the death of William Burroughs. It's a very autobiographical novel when Burroughs was a drug addict and a gay man, and he was forced to leave Texas. He went to Mexico City, and he started to cruise in the bars and the restaurants trying to find company. The film is fantastic. I think it's the best film by Luca Guadagnino so far, and the performance of Danny Craig is absolutely outstanding. I think it's the performance of his life. He's a great, great actor, and he takes some risks, of course, because it's something that's not in line with his previous films.

There were three versions of the film. The first one was more than three hours long. The second one was two and one half. The final version is two hours and 15 minutes. I haven't seen the last one, but the two versions I saw were really, really amazing. Luca reconstructed Mexico City in Cinecittá, in Rome, so the visual is completely abstract, is not realistic. Again, it's very personal, very original, beautiful from the visual point of view. And all the performances are absolutely outstanding.

When you have a festival like this where there's so many big stars and often big personalities and egos, I have to imagine there’s some behind-the-scenes drama.

But actually less than expected. The major problem we have are the hotels, because we only have one five-star hotel on the Lido, which is the Excelsior. Everybody would love to be there, but it's impossible to find a room for everybody, so we need to convince the people to go to some [other] hotels. But apart from this logistic problem that we have every year, there are not so many issues or crises connected to the participation of Venice.

You have both Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie attending the festival this year with their respective films, Wolfs and Maria. Obviously, there’s some tension there due to their ongoing divorce proceedings. How do you handle that? Just space out their appearances?

Yes, of course. Angelina will be on the first day, on Thursday the 29, and she will leave right after with [Maria director] Pablo Larraín to go to Telluride. So Brad will arrive only on Saturday, to Venice. There is no way that they can cross each other at the Lido.

Is there any film on the lineup that you think is really going to be a surprise?

There will be, of course. For example, in the main competition, we have only 12 filmmakers that were already in competition with Venice. All the others are newcomers for the main competition, and there will be young filmmakers as well. One film that I think will be a big surprise is The Brutalist by Brady Corbet, which is an incredible film. It is a very long film: it is three hours and 35 minutes long. It was shot in 70mm. It's an incredible film. Very brave, very ambitious, very personal.

You recently quit Twitter, and said it was because of Elon Musk's statements. Was there something specific he did recently?

I was really upset when he decided to change the name from Twitter, to X, which I didn't like it at all. And then recently, all the positions that Musk took, they're not only embarrassing, they're really dangerous. Twitter is becoming a tool for political agenda that I don't like it at all. It was a free space before for discussion, debates, and whatever. Now it's becoming something else, so I don't like the idea of being part of it anymore.